you make a fool of death with your beauty
by bravemccalll
Summary: "I co-own a bakery and try not to wake up the dead. I am mostly unsuccessful." - also known as the one where Fuyuhiko solves crimes, Nagito roller-skates and Hajime bakes pies and wakes up the dead. Sometimes on purpose. Pushing Daisies AU.
1. Chapter 1

chapter one – a truly eventful week

The week Hajime's life gets turned upside down (or completely and utterly ruined he'd moan later, face down on his couch), he learns three things.

The first is that no-one uses the word 'foolhardy' anymore.

The second is that Kazuichi Souda will do anything in his power to get free pie, even at the risk of losing all of his vital organs.

The third is that Chiaki Nanami looks just as pretty as she did ten years ago.

Hajime wants to buy a new life, effective immediately.

/

"I'm just saying," says Kazuichi, gesturing wildly with his fork, "That no-one uses the word 'foolhardy' anymore."

Hajime frowns. "That's preposterous." Kazuichi raises his eyebrows in a way that tells Hajime that no-one uses the word 'preposterous' either which just elevates his disbelief to a whole new level. "''Foolhardy' is a beautiful word. Dare I say it, it may be the best word in the English language."

Kazuichi snorts. "Listen brother- "

"What have I said about calling me brother."

"Listen brother, the best word in the English language is…" Kazuichi leans across the counter between them and his voice drops to a whisper. "…boobies."

Hajime turns on his heel and ignores Kazuichi's loud laughter from behind him. "I'm going back to work," he says and heads back into the kitchen. Through the window, he can see Kazuichi waving at him before winking. Hajime grins but distracts himself with stirring a new dough in his mixing bowl.

Covered in flour up to his elbows, Hajime doesn't know that Peko had entered the kitchen until she starts speaking.

"Why did Souda just ask me for free pie because he quote, un-quote 'blew your mind'?"

"Jesus!" Hajime yelps, scrambling to catch his dough before it can roll off the edge of his workbench. He turns to see Peko, standing in the doorway, arms folded and an unimpressed facial expression on her face. "He told me that no-one uses the 'foolhardy' anymore."

Her expression shifts from unimpressed to personally offended. "I used that word last week. In front of him."

Hajime points a victorious finger at her, ignoring the bit of wet dough that dripped off his finger. "Ex-actly!"

"You're both nerds," Kazuichi calls from the diner.

Peko rolls her eyes and heads towards her office. "Tell Souda that the only time he will ever get free pie is when I die," she says to Hajime as she passes him.

"I told him that yesterday," Hajime replies.

"Tell him again," Peko says, and disappears.

/

Here's the thing: Peko is Hajime's boss. She owns the Pie Hole. She's incredibly efficient and hardworking, very no-nonsense.

Nagito is convinced that she's an assassin.

("I'm just saying, have you ever seen her outside of work?" Nagito asks, lying next Hajime at three in the morning when they both should be sleeping.

"Yes," Hajime answers. "Multiple times on multiple occasions."

Nagito hums and doesn't look convinced. "Suspicious..."

"You sound like Kaz."

Nagito snorts and burrows under the duvet. "Well, you're the one dating me so who's the bigger fool here.")

Hajime caught her twirling one of his knifes between her fingers in the kitchen with the ease of someone who had handled a blade often when he came in early one morning.

He never mentioned it to Nagito.

/

Fuyuhiko greets him with a simple and heartfelt, "Come on, dickhead," before exiting the Pie Hole. Hajime thinks the entire thing is a bit counterproductive; entering just to leave. Fuyuhiko needs to invest in a phone.

(Hajime had told him this once and all he had gotten was a look that seemed to say, 'You're a moron' as he said, "I do have a phone." He'd never gotten around to asking why he never used it.)

Hajime unties his apron and after letting Peko know he was taking his break early – a fact she simply nodded at with a raised eyebrow – he joined Fuyuhiko at the entrance of the diner.

"There's a case I need your help with," says Fuyuhiko, bypassing all social niceties.

"I'm working right now," Hajime replies.

Fuyuhiko looks unimpressed (an expression that looks eerily identical to Peko's, Hajime notes). "I'm sure your boss won't mind if you take the rest of the day off."

Hajime tries to not look baffled and fails. "Fuyuhiko, I'm the only baker. If I take the day off then no pies will be made and The Pie Hole will have to shut tomorrow."

"That," Fuyuhiko says, "Is a terrible business model."

Hajime can only agree.

"Fine, I'll come by after you've finished work." Fuyuhiko turns and quickly disappears into the crowd of people walking down the street.

Hajime refuses to admit that he finds the trick cool.

/

Here's the thing: Fuyuhiko is a detective. He is quick on his feet, smart in the way that he can read people, in the way that he seems to see the things that no-one else notices.

He also knows Hajime's secret.

("So, you can bring back the dead," Fuyuhiko had stated over a cup of coffee and a banoffee pie.

Hajime tried to forget the cat that he had found in the gutter, the one that he had reached out to touch without thinking and how it had come back to life. Something that would've been completely fine if he hadn't turned around to see Fuyuhiko staring at him as though he had finally found exactly what he was looking for. "Yes," is all he said.

Fuyuhiko blinked and leant forward. "People too?"

It was a question but Hajime knew that he already knew the answer. "Yes."

Fuyuhiko grinned, looking almost like an elated child for a brief moment. "I have a business proposition for you.")

/

At five exactly the entire diner has cleared out and only Hajime and Peko remain. Hajime wipes down the counter of his workbench and unties his apron. He pokes his head into Peko's office to tell her goodnight and finds the room empty, all of her paperwork spread out in an organised mess on her desk.

He frowns. He steps into the room only to let out a yelp when a voice sounds out behind him. Hajime whirls around to see Peko standing behind him, an eyebrow raised. "What?" Hajime asks.

"I said, 'what are you doing?'," Peko repeats, side-stepping Hajime so she could walk towards her desk.

"Oh, I was just going to say goodnight but you weren't here." Peko hums and starts to gather some of the paper she had left scattered. Hajime stares at the back of her head. Her grey hair, usually combed straight to her shoulder without a single strand out of place, was sticking up and looked vaguely windswept. Windswept from her latest assassination, a voice says in his that sounds suspiciously like Nagito. He ignores it. "Um…"

She turns and raises another eyebrow. "Yes, Hajime?"

Hajime shakes his head. "Nothing. Well, goodnight!" He backs out of her office and darts through the kitchen, stopping by the front door to grab his coat and gloves before heading out of the diner.

The November cold greets him and he can see his breath come out in front of him in white puffs. Standing underneath a streetlamp in a long black coat is Fuyuhiko. "You are incredibly overdramatic," Hajime tells him. Fuyuhiko only nods and jerks his head towards his car.

"So, what's the case?" Hajime asks as they drive towards the morgue.

"A twenty-six-year-old girl was strangled to death outside the town's park."

"Damn," says Hajime. "Me and Nagito feed the ducks there."

"Nagito and I," Fuyuhiko corrects. Hajime wonders if this is how Kazuichi feels whenever they hang out.

"You know I'm twenty-six as well, right?" Hajime asks.

Fuyuhiko raises an eyebrow. "And I'm twenty-seven. What does that matter?"

"Well I could know her. This isn't a big town, Fuyuhiko."

Fuyuhiko hums as he makes a turn. "I didn't think about that." He glances at Hajime from the corner of his eye. "Will you be ok, if you do know her?"

Hajime shrugs, not willing to lie to what he considers a friend even if that isn't a mutual title. "I'll try to be," he offers, instead.

Fuyuhiko nods as he brings the car to a stop. He smiles slightly at Hajime before climbing out the car.

They enter the morgue together and Fuyuhiko talks to the man at the desk. Hajime pretends not to see Fuyuhiko blatantly threaten the man with bodily harm whilst the man in question just blinks at him sleepily.

A few minutes later and there's a dead body laid out in front of them.

Hajime knows her.

"This is Mikan Tsumiki," Hajime states blankly. Fuyuhiko is staring at him but Hajime doesn't look over at him.

He reaches a hand out but stops just before his finger can touch the skin of her arm.

He remembers her from high school. Her hair had been longer but it was still the same dark shade of blue. He remembers how clumsy she had been, seemingly tripping over air more often than any human being should physically be able to. She had worn large woollen jumpers over black leggings but even with that, it was hard to miss the bruises that had littered her pale skin.

Now though, there is only bruises around her neck, in the shape of human hands.

Hajime feels like he is going to be sick.

He pushes the feeling down and taps her arm.

The result is instantaneous. Tsumiki lurches up, gasping for breath, both her hands reaching up to clutch her throat. She blinks at Hajime with wide eyes and mouths his name.

Hajime waves.

Fuyuhiko gets right down to business. "So, Tsumiki," he starts, "Do you know who killed you?"

Tsumiki opens her mouth to answer but only formless gasps come out. She can only nod in answer, hands massaging her throat desperately. "Oh god," Hajime says, glancing at his watch. Forty seconds left.

"Time to play twenty questions," Fuyuhiko says, grimly. "Alright. Was it a man?" Tsumiki shakes her head. "A woman?" A nod. "Was she your age?" Tsumiki points down. "Only a few years younger?" A nod. "Was it only her?" A nod.

Hajime elbows Fuyuhiko and gestures towards his wrist. Ten seconds left. Fuyuhiko narrows his eyes and turns back to Tsumiki. "Did you know her well?" he asks.

The last thing she ever does is nod before Hajime reaches out and pokes her, her body slumping down into stillness once more.

"Well," Hajime says. "I'm traumatised." Fuyuhiko pats him on the shoulder. It doesn't make things any better but it doesn't make them any worse either.

/

Here's the thing: Hajime has powers. And these powers have rules.

He can bring any dead thing back to life with one touch but if it stays alive more than sixty seconds then something else has to die in its place. If he touches something that he brought back to life once more, then it goes back to being dead.

He likes these rules. They are simply and straight-forward, even if they are somewhat annoying.

(He figured out all of these rules when he was twelve, crouched in front of flies that he had swatted, Kazuichi cowering behind him with his hands over his eyes.

"This is so gross," he had moaned, his face pressed into Hajime's shoulder blades.

Hajime had touched one of the flies and watched it come to life, buzzing over the boys' heads and towards the closed window.

"This is so cool," Kazuichi had cried, a hand reaching out to grab Hajime and shake him.

He'd laughed and stretched another hand towards the rest of the flies.)

His parents had both died in a car accident when he was seventeen and they refused to let him see their bodies, despite how much he had begged.

He still doesn't know if it was for the best that they stayed gone.

/

"Holy shit," Kazuichi gasps over his third plate of strawberry pie. "Mikan is dead?!"

Hajime shushes him, glancing around to see if anyone has noticed his friend's outburst. No-one has but the two women in the booth behind him raise their eyebrows at each other. "Yes," Hajime says. "She was strangled outside of Woodgrove Park."

Kazuichi frowns. "Damn. You and Nagito feed the ducks there."

Hajime can't help smiling. "That's what I said!" They grin at each other for a moment before resuming their solemn mood again. "I just can't believe it, you know?"

Kazuichi nods in agreement. "Yeah, I getcha. Still feels like yesterday we were in high school."

Hajime hums. While high school must not seem faraway given how much his life has stayed the same for Kazuichi – he still had the bright pink hair that he'd dyed when they were fifteen and looking for something dumb to do – for Hajime, high school was as distant as anything could get.

He didn't mention this though as the mood was already as down, he didn't need to put a heavier damper on it. Instead he raises a challenging eyebrow. "Aren't you going to demand free pie because you're grieving?"

"Wow Hajime." Kazuichi shakes his head, giving him a disappointed look. "I would never do that. How heartless do you think I am?"

Hajime simply stares at him.

"Peko threatened to cut out all of my vital organs if I asked anymore," Kazuichi confesses.

"Wow," Hajime says.

There is a beat of silence.

"So… can I have a slice of free pie because I am grieving- "

"Kazuichi Souda, I will gut you!" Peko shouts from her office.

Kazuichi's mouth snaps shut. Hajime laughs.

/

Here's the thing: Kazuichi is Hajime's best friend. He works as a mechanic in the garage a few streets down from The Pie Hole and always comes in during his break and barters for free pie until threatened with bodily harm.

They met when they were five and Hajime didn't have any friends.

Hajime remembers sitting in the dirt, alone apart from the toy truck that he rocks back and forth half-heartedly. He remembers a boy with blonde hair falling face-first in front of him and looking up with a tooth missing and a bloody nose. Hajime had dragged him to the school nurse and trying to wipe away the boy's tears with the tissues he kept in his pocket.

The next day, the boy had plopped down next to him and told him proudly that he had broken his nose but it was all right because he got a visit from the tooth fairy last night and look what she got me! Isn't that so cool! My name's Kaz, by the way.

Hajime doesn't remember when Kazuichi became one of the most important people in his life but sometimes he finds he doesn't mind.

/

Nagito works as a waiter at The Pie Hole and all he does according to Kazuichi is cheat people out of their money and ogle at Hajime.

Nagito snorts. Hajime pretends that he isn't blushing. "Yep," Nagito chirps before zooming across the room to serve another customer.

"Hajime," moans Kazuichi, face planted on the counter. "He's wearing roller-skates."

"Huh. I didn't even notice."

Kazuichi looks up at Hajime in disbelief. Hajime struggles to keep his face straight. "I can't believe you're dating him. He's a menace. He threatened me in Morse code yesterday."

Hajime can't help the laugh that escapes him. "How did he do that?"

"Through blinking."

Hajime howls, hunched over the counter, hands covering his mouth. Kazuichi protests from his stool in front of him. "I'm being serious! The way he blinks isn't normal!"

"What's going on?"

Hajime turns his head to see Peko exiting the kitchen, heading to sit next to Kazuichi. "Kaz is complaining about Nagito again," he explains, wiping away some tears from the corners of his eyes.

"Ah," Peko says. "Could I have a slice of rhubarb pie, please?"

"Of course," Hajime says and turns to grab the pie and a plate.

Kazuichi continues talking but this time to Peko. "Why is Nagito even wearing skates? Surely that's against some kind of policy."

"No," Hajime hears Peko answer. "He asked me and said that it improves his efficiency and I've yet to see an accident of any kind." Hajime remember when Nagito had first bought those skates and had bruised every part of his body on every single corner in their shared apartment before he managed to actually use them properly. He clamps his mouth shut and cuts into the rhubarb pie.

"What are we talking about?" Nagito asks and Hajime turns in time to see him stuff dollar bills into the tip jar before skating around the counter to press a kiss to Hajime's cheek.

"No PDA," Kazuichi groans as Hajime passes Peko her slice of rhubarb pie.

"There's no rule against it," she counters, winking at Hajime and Nagito. They both grin at her in return. Kazuichi flops onto the counter.

("Do you know Morse Code?" Hajime asks Nagito later when they're about to fall asleep.

He can feel Nagito's grin on his collarbone. "Yes," he answers.

Hajime laughs so hard he falls off the bed.)

/

It's a Saturday when it happens. The day so far had been quite unremarkable. He had rolled out of bed before Nagito had even woken up and headed to work to check on his pies. Fuyuhiko had come in around ten and ordered his usual banoffee pie and black coffee and sat on the counter and asked Hajime about Tsumiki. Nagito strolled in around eleven to start working and Kazuichi came in at one to ask for free pie again.

Things went wrong when Hajime was closing up.

Peko had headed out early, something personal that she made clear Hajime wasn't to ask about. Nagito had raised an eyebrow and mouthed 'assassin' to him. Hajime had snorted and rolled his eyes.

Nagito had left before Hajime, saying that he would grab them takeout and that they would meet up at their apartment. Hajime had agreed and was left alone in his diner.

He had cleaned under all the tables and cleaned down his workbench. After covering his pies and turning off all the lights, he grabbed his coat and gloves and stepped outside.

As he's turning the key in the lock, he thinks he hears a voice. Glancing up, he sees a figure heading towards him, their hood pulled up.

"Oh no, please don't be closed," they say.

"I'm sorry," Hajime says, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. To his horror, the figure sniffles and their shoulders start to shake. "Oh god, please don't cry. I'm sorry." He reaches his hands up and lets them hover awkwardly in the space just around them.

"Nothing is going right today," the figure cries. "I had to identify my best friend's dead body and I lost a shoe and I haven't slept in god knows how long and now I just want something to eat and some coffee and this place is shut and I just –"

The figure's hand shoots up and yanks their hood down in frustration and Hajime freezes.

Chiaki Nanami stands in front of him, pink hair a mess and tears wetting her face. Hajime jerks his hands back before he knows what he's doing. He's too busy focused on oh god oh god ohgodohgod that's Chiaki Nanami oh dear god that he doesn't notice her eyes starting to flutter.

"Um ma'am," he starts, his voice high and panicked, "Um maybe you should – oh god!"

Chiaki pitches forward and collapses into his chest. He just catches her, hands scrabbling over her back. "Chiaki?" he asks but she doesn't answer.

/

Here's the thing: Hajime sometimes uses his power when he really shouldn't and he knows he shouldn't but he does anyway.

Here's the thing: Hajime did a lot of dumb things when he was sixteen-year-old with a crush and his parents were still alive and Kazuichi had his back no matter what he was doing.

Here's the thing: Chiaki Nanami died when she was sixteen. And Hajime has never been known for his impulse control.


	2. Chapter 2

chapter two – could you define the truth for me?

Chiaki decides that the moment her life gets weird is the moment when she wakes up in the booth of a bakery to the sound of bickering.

She sits up and ignores the flash of pain through her lower back and sees a group of people slightly to her left, tightly knit together and loudly arguing.

"-this is a terrible idea. A horrible, terrible idea!" a man in a luminous yellow jumpsuit cries. His hair is hot pink. Kazuichi Souda, her mind supplies. He went to the same high school as her. She recalls a time when he tried to sneak a parrot into Chemistry, for no apparent reason than to know if he could.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with Kaz," says a man in roller-skates, rolling back and forth. His hair is a white cloud around his head and he wears a blue and green striped shirt. It hurts her eyes to look at so she looks away.

"What is so wrong about helping a girl who just lost her best friend, I don't understand," says the only woman. Her hair is silver and brushes the tops of her shoulders. It looks unkempt at the back, as though she had just walked through a hurricane and only had time to brush the front before joining this conversation. She wears a white shirt and a pair of black trousers and Chiaki feels like she could gut her without trying too hard.

"I might have an idea but I really hope I'm wrong," says another man. He's shorter than most of the group, with blonde hair cut close to his skull, a faint pattern on the side of his head. He's dressed in a black suit with a black tie and she wonders if he always dresses like he's about to go to a funeral.

"I can't read your mind so I don't know if you're wrong," says the final man. Hajime Hinata. He also went to high school with her. She can't remember that much about him apart from the smiles he used to give her in English and the time he threw a chair at a fire alarm to distract some bullies from picking on Kazuichi.

"Was she," the blonde man makes an odd noise that sounds like a honk, "And then you," another honk.

Hajime is quiet for a moment. The woman looks like she would rather be anywhere else in the world. "Yes," Hajime says eventually.

"God damn it Hajime," the blonde man groans, running a hand through his hair. The back of his shirt is untucked.

"It was a good thing he did," the cloud man says. "Don't yell at him."

"Thank you," Hajime smiles.

"What," Chiaki says and watches as they all jump and turn to her, "Is going on."

There is silence.

"Welcome to The Pie Hole," Kazuichi says. "Our pie is good but our waiters are shit." The cloud man skates towards him threateningly and Chiaki thinks about how the conversation somehow got weirder.

/

Chiaki spends the night on the woman's couch and the next morning grabs her stuff from where she'd dumped it at her hotel.

She had tried to protest, saying that she didn't have to stay with her, that she was perfectly fine staying at the hotel but the woman had cut her off with a wave of her hand. "Nonsense," she'd said in a tone that left no room for arguments. "You shouldn't be alone right now."

The woman's name is Peko Pekoyama and she smiles at Chiaki as though they had been friends for years instead of them just meeting the night before.

Her apartment is a lot like her in a way, black and white colours and sharp edges everywhere. Chiaki feels as though everything in there is confidential and not meant for her eyes.

After she grabs her two bags, she pays for the night she didn't spend there and heads towards Peko's car. The woman herself is on the phone and Chiaki tries to pretend that she isn't eavesdropping as she dumps her stuff into the back of the vehicle.

"No, I think she's fine." There's a pause. "No, I don't believe that would be appropriate." Another pause. "I know it would, but…" A longer pause as Chiaki climbs into the passenger seat. Peko glances at her and smiles a little. "Alright, but try to be sensitive, yes?" She hangs up and starts the car. Chiaki scrambles for something to say but Peko beats her to it. "Fuyuhiko, the blonde one?" When Chiaki nods, she continues. "He's a detective and he's investigating your friend's murder. He wants to ask you some questions but if you don't feel up to it, that's perfectly fine."

Chiaki shakes her head. "No, it's cool. I want to help in any way I can."

Peko nods as she stops the car outside The Pie Hole. "You can stay here while I drop your belongings at my apartment. Hajime and Nagito are inside." Chiaki smiles and thanks her, getting out of the car. She watches it speed away before entering the bakery.

The place is almost empty apart from a few customers that are sat in the booths. Through the window between the kitchen and the diner she can see Hajime kneading dough. Across from him she can see the cloud man gesturing as he talks.

She makes her way to the counter just in front of the window and sits on one of the red leather stools. She looks at the pie display in front of her and wonders what she wants to order.

"I recommend the strawberry."

Chiaki looks up in time to see Kazuichi take a seat next to her. He grins at her. "But, I mean, they're all good when they're free."

She raises her eyebrows. "They give out free pie?"

"Only to me," Kazuichi winks just as the cloud man roller-skates out of the kitchen.

"No, no we don't," he says, coming to a stop in front of Chiaki. He sticks his hand out. "I'm Nagito Komaeda. Our best waiter and Hajime's boyfriend."

Chiaki shakes his hand. "It's lovely to meet you."

Nagito smiles at her as though she just made his day and Chiaki can't help the grin that encompasses her face. "So, what can I get you?"

Chiaki thinks it over. "Strawberry," she says. She sees Kazuichi blink at her in shock from beside her. She winks.

"On it!" Nagito chirps and skates away.

"Your t-shirt has a dinosaur on it," Kazuichi states.

Chiaki looks down at her yellow crop top. There's a white stegosaurus on the pocket. She nods at him. "Thank you," she says, very seriously.

He snorts and she reaches up and tugs at a strand of his hair. It is all cut at different lengths, making it look choppy and wild. "Hair twins," she says. He looks confused. "Get it? Because our hair's pink."

Kazuichi laughs. "Gotcha."

/

Here's the thing: when Chiaki graduated high school, she got a job offer at the gaming company of her dreams and she left.

She'd come back whenever she could: holidays, birthdays, Christmases. But she always felt like it wasn't enough.

("Do you hate me?" she'd asked Tsumiki once. "For leaving?"

Tsumiki had smiled and wrapped her arms around her. "Chiaki, you're right here. You never truly left."

Chiaki knows that those words were meant to comfort her but sometimes she feels like they haunt her.)

/

"So, what can you tell me about Tsumiki Mikan."

Fuyuhiko sits across from her in a booth, hands folded around his coffee cup. His finger taps the rim of the cup and she wonders if that's a nervous habit, something he doesn't quite mean to do. She sets her shoulders and ignores the burning deep in her heart. "She was my best friend. I can tell you everything."

Fuyuhiko gets right to the point. "Any other important women in her life apart from you? Girlfriend? Other close female friends?"

"She had a girlfriend. Junko Enoshima." Chiaki wrinkles her nose and looks out the window. It's late afternoon, she can see people milling about idly.

"You don't like her. Junko."

"Understatement. I am…indebted to her in a way. She was there for Tsumiki in ways that I couldn't be. She helped Tsumiki become more confident and for that I am grateful. But, I don't know. I felt like she was a bad influence almost."

Fuyuhiko nods as though he understands exactly what she means. "Do you think that Junko would kill Tsumiki?"

Chiaki purses her lips. "I'd like to think not. But then, what do I know?" She gives him a self-deprecating smile. There is a pause before he hesitantly reaches out a hand and clumsily pats her on the shoulder. "Thank you," she says. He nods.

He stands up and downs the rest of his coffee. "If you have any other ideas, tell Peko and she'll contact me." When she nods, he turns and leaves The Pie Hole.

Hajime plops himself down in the seat in front of her. He looks at everything except her. She glances out of the corner of her eye and can see Nagito pretending that he isn't watching them. "Are you," Hajime starts then stops. He bites his lip and twists his hand around one of his fingers. "Are you ok?"

She blinks. "Um. I mean, I will be. Probably anyway." This doesn't seem to soothe him because he frowns down at the table between them. "It's fine, Hajime. Honestly."

She reaches a hand out to touch his, to try and console him but he jerks back, violently. She pretends that the move doesn't hurt her feelings. "Sorry, I just…" He flounders for a moment. "…Don't like being touched," he settles on.

This time Chiaki yanks her hands back. "Oh right. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to – "

"Oh no, it's not your fault. You didn't know – "

"But I shouldn't have tried in the first place, that was really insensitive – "

"Oh, nonsense! It's fine, really – "

"Jesus Christ, you're both train wrecks."

They both look up to see a blonde girl with her hair in bunches staring down at them both. A girl with short red hair comes up behind her and drags her away, scolding her and apologising at the time. Hajime stares after her for a bit before standing up and jerking a thumb towards the kitchen. "I need to get back to work," he says.

Chiaki nods vigourously. "Yup, yup. Do your thing, dude." He walks away and she lets her head fall on the table. "'Dude'?" she mumbles into the painted wood. "What are you, a twelve-year-old boy?"

"Been there, my guy," Nagito says as he skates by and grabs the coffee cup Fuyuhiko left behind. "Thinking about the inevitability of death? Cause boy do I have some points to bring up."

Against her will, Chiaki laughs.

/

Here's the thing: Chiaki remembers odd days from high school – the day Tsumiki moved into her house to get away from her abusive parents, the day she was appointed as Head Girl.

She remembers certain moments, pictures frozen in her mind forever – Tsumiki's smile when her parents referred to her as their other daughter, Kazuichi's bright pink hair catching the light at break, a chair hitting a fire alarm.

She remembers certain people vividly, others not so much. Hajime is someone she remembers in detail. She can see clearly his olive skin and his dark hair, his smile and the way he held his pen.

She had one conversation with him before she fainted on to him in front of The Pie Hole. He'd stopped by her table in the lunch hall and leaned in close. She can remember his breath on her skin as though it had happened moments ago.

"I am going to throw a chair at that fire alarm," he'd said. "Don't tell anyone?"

There had been so many things she had wanted to say: why me?, why on Earth are you throwing a chair at a fire alarm?, what mint do you use, it smells amazing.

Instead she had said, "Ok," and watched his face light up before he was gone, tucking the chair that had been next to her under his arm before he threw it.

(She hadn't told anyone and for some reason when she saw him in The Pie Hole, she wanted to tell him that. You remember when you threw a chair at a fire alarm because I do, I do. I never told anyone. Just like you asked.)

She doesn't know if he cares. She doesn't know why she does. It doesn't matter.

(It does. To her.)

/

"I want a pie with the blood of the innocent in it," the man with a scar drawn around his right eye says.

"We have plum," Nagito replies.

The man thinks it over. "That will suffice," he says.

Chiaki looks at Hajime. He shrugs and turns back to sorting the pie display that sits between the window into the kitchen and the counter. Nagito stands beside him, taking the plum pie off one of the higher shelves. Nagito bumps his hip against Hajime's. Hajime smiles at him. Chiaki watches.

She turns to the man ordering the plum pie. "Hello, I'm Chiaki Nanami." She sticks her hand out for him to shake. He pinches her pointer finger and drags it away from him, as though she had personally offended him with the action.

"I have no mortal name. I am not of this world. My real name –" He pauses to laugh, seemingly at all of human-kind. "- Oh, you could not even begin to imagine how to pronounce it, never mind write it down, never mind remember it, never mind –"

"His name is Gundham Tanaka," Hajime calls from the display stand. Nagito snorts as he lays a plate in front of the man named Gundham.

Gundham slams his fist onto the table. "Damnit Hajime!" he exclaims. "I told you that in confidence! Not for you to tell every maiden that comes your way!" Hajime begins to splutter in indignation but Gundham turns to Chiaki to stare at her very gravely. "You must understand, creature here named 'Chiaki', I am here for very important business indeed. You must not endanger my mission in any –"

"He's waiting on his girlfriend," Nagito interjects, winking at Chiaki. She tries not to smile. Fails.

"Damnit Nagito!" Gundham exclaims again. "Do you want to die?"

"Yup," Nagito says.

"Babe, we talked about this," Hajime sighs.

Chiaki laughs into her hands and everyone smiles at her, even Gundham who pats her shoulder and goes to greet a blonde woman standing at the entrance.

"You," Gundham says before he departs. "You are very brave."

Chiaki doesn't know what prompted the remark but it leaves a warm feeling in her chest.

/

Here's the thing: Chiaki went to a party when she was sixteen. It was New Year's Party; her entire year had been invited. She remembers seeing Hajime there, talking to a girl with wild brown hair and a toothy grin.

She'd left early.

She remembers walking down an empty street, checking her watch and seeing that it was almost midnight. She'd been so preoccupied staring down at her wrist, thinking about how Tsumiki was the one who had given her the gadget for her fourteenth birthday, that she hadn't seen the car coming before it was too late.

The next thing she remembers is the concrete, cold beneath her back, a moisture seeping into her green dress, and a pain that seemed to ignite every one of her nerves.

She remembers closing her eyes. She remembers being prepared to never open them.

Then they were open anyway and she was gasping so hard her lungs stung. She remembers seeing a figure backing away from her and before she could open her mouth to say anything, they had disappeared around a corner.

Here's the thing: Chiaki remembers dragging herself home that night and telling her parents that she had fallen to explain away the gash on her knee.

Here's the thing: Chiaki remembers reading the newspaper the next day that said that Ibuki Mioda had collapsed at midnight and never got back up.

Here's the thing: Chiaki remembers dying just before midnight on New Year's Eve. And she knows exactly who had killed her.

/

author's note: cannot believe i didn't say last time but the title is from Florence and the machine's Hunger which is honestly a bop that i recommend.  
reviews make my day so please leave me one!  
bravemccalll is my tumblr, hmu if u want to the good kush (this is NOT the dollar store)


	3. Chapter 3

chapter three – hope comes bearing gifts

Hajime remembers his parents through rose-tinted glasses. He remembers his mother's laugh lighter and sweeter, his father's hair darker and softer. His memories are filled with all the good parts of when they were alive: how his father had held his bike steady when he first got on it, how his mother had cheered when he won first place in the spelling bee when he was eight.

Of course, the dark always manages to worm its way in, despite how tightly you seal the door.

He remembers Kazuichi's arms as a steel band around his waist when he tried to push his way towards his parents' bodies. He could see them, they were lying right there, he only had to get closer, just one touch –

Kazuichi had been crying, Hajime remembers the wet patch on the back of his neck, soaking the collar of his shirt. "You can't!" he'd sobbed and dragged Hajime further and further away. "Then everyone'll know and what'll happen to you?"

Hajime hadn't cared.

They've been cremated, his aunt told him during the second week of his stay at her house. Hajime hated it there, simply on the principal that he hated anywhere that his parents weren't which was everywhere now. We're going to spread their ashes in the lake that your father used to fish, do you remember it?

Hajime thinks that he has a piece of rope wrapped around his ankle to keep him tethered to the Earth. That day it snapped.

/

Hajime finds himself talking to Chiaki a lot. She sits on his workbench with her legs swinging as he works and they talk about everything.

He asks her what she does for a living. ("Games designer but they've given me a few months off - without pay, mind you - because of...well, y'know.) She asks him why Kazuichi dyed his hair when they were fifteen. ("I believe he said to me, quote, un-quote, 'Why the fuck not?")

She doesn't say much about Tsumiki. He doesn't say anything about the years after his parents died.

But it's fun.

He can't remember when they started talking like this, with her roaming his kitchen and him letting her. He finds he doesn't mind.

/

A sweetshop has opened up three doors down. Kyouko's Kandy.

Peko wonders if there is going to be any competition. Kazuichi offers to throw a brick through their front window. Nagito has already roller-skated past them five times, trying to see who owns the place.

Hajime wants a nap.

/

The owner of Kyouko's Kandy is not actually a woman named Kyouko but actually a short man with spiked brown hair called Makoto Naegi. He introduces himself with a smile that rivals the sun and gives them a box filled with taffy.

Hajime decides he likes him.

"So, who's Kyouko?" Kazuichi asks around a mouth stuffed with sweets.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," says Peko from behind the counter. Fuyuhiko snorts from in front of her and she gives him a coy smile. Hajime doesn't notice.

"Oh, it's not a problem!" Makoto says, happily. Hajime does notice that there is little that Makoto doesn't say with a smile. "Kyouko is my wife. She's the one who inspired me to open up my sweet shop so I named it after her."

"Aw," Chiaki sighs from beside Makoto. "That's so sweet. Get it? Sweet?" She grins at everyone. Hajime groans. Nagito laughs.

"I get that a lot," Makoto giggles. He giggles. Hajime is convinced that this man is a human part-time, a cherub full-time.. "My husband hates it."

"Husband?" Fuyuhiko asks.

The smile disappears. "Um, yeah. I have a wife and a husband. Polygamy and all that." He fiddles with his thumbs.

"Oh, that's fine!" Chiaki says, patting his arm. He smiles at her. "Not that you need my approval or anything, I'm just trying to say that, y'know, that's not weird or anything, because it's not! It's not weird at all, I'm just trying to say – "

"We're just trying to say," Nagito interjects, "That it's all fine here. You don't gotta worry or anything." Chiaki grins at him, red cheeks and all.

Makoto looks like he's going to explode with happiness. Fuyuhiko locks eyes with Peko and winks. Her lips twitch. Hajime doesn't notice.

/

Here's the thing: Hajime had never thought about polygamy before.

That night when he and Nagito get into bed, he asks Nagito his opinion about it. Nagito thinks it over, his head resting on Hajime's chest. Hajime runs his hand through Nagito's hair.

("It looks like a cloud," Chiaki had told him earlier, hands braced on his workbench, watching him roll out dough. "Doesn't it?"

Hajime had snorted before he could stop himself. She'd raised her eyebrow in a silent question. "Well, it's just – your hair looks like candy floss."

She'd laughed joyfully and the sound had filled his lungs. "Shut up, pinecone.")

"I think it'd depend on the person," Nagito says eventually.

"Me too," Hajime replies. "I love you."

"I love you too," Nagito says, his voice a rumble on his collarbone and Hajime wonders if he can see the words branded on his skin.

/

Fuyuhiko meets Kyouko before the rest of them and marches into The Pie Hole with a scowl.

"Anyone ever tell you that you look like an angry puppy when you make that face?" Nagito asks as he rolls to a stop beside Hajime. Fuyuhiko glares at him. Hajime snorts.

"I just met Kyouko," he growls.

("Angry puppy," Nagito murmurs.)

"Oh?" Peko says, looking intrigued. "What was she like?"

"She said that she thinks my intuition must be incredibly good because there's little to no actual physical evidence to explain how I've solved these crimes." Hajime tries to not look embarrassed. Nagito rolls his eyes at him.

"She into your work?" Peko asks, looking at Fuyuhiko with a raised eyebrow. He looks slightly sheepish under her gaze and Hajime doesn't understand why.

"She's a detective as well. She wants to work on Tsumiki's case with me," says Fuyuhiko.

Hajime glances at Chiaki who had been sitting quietly ever since Fuyuhiko came in but perked up at the mention of her late best friend. He looks back at Fuyuhiko who is staring at Peko. Peko stares back at him before getting up and heading towards her office, through the kitchen.

"Will you work with her?" Chiaki asks, her voice small. Hajime wants to give her a hug but can only cross his arms tightly across his chest. Nagito reaches a hand out and pats her shoulder.

"I'll have to think about it," Fuyuhiko says before disappearing into the back.

"Why's he leaving that way?" Nagito wonders, scrunching up his nose in confusion.

"No idea," Hajime replies.

"You're both so dumb," Chiaki sighs.

/

Here's the thing: Hajime had met Peko at three in the morning in the middle of winter when he was eighteen and drifting through life like his feet weren't on the ground.

He had been sitting on a curb outside what would soon be The Pie Hole in a woolly jumper with a cooling apple pie cradled in his arms and she had slumped down next to him. "I read this quote once," she said. He barely looked up, only tilted his head slightly. "It said: 'What is human existence? It turns out it's pretty simple: We are dead stars, looking back up at the sky.'"

"Powerful stuff," Hajime murmured. He had been living with his aunt, miles away, but he had run away, back to the town where his parents had once lived, where Chiaki had died on a street not a few blocks from that corner, where Kazuichi was sleeping in his bed a few streets away. He hadn't slept in too long himself, his eyes stung with exhaustion. He remembered breaking into what used to be his house to use the oven to bake his pie. He left quickly, the ghosts that haunted what used to be a home had watched him, their eyes boring into the back of his neck.

"I don't like it. I'm not a fan of poetry," she said. "I'm Peko."

"Hajime."

"It's nice to meet you," she said. He hadn't been able to tell if she was being honest or not; her face was blank and she blinked at him.

"Ditto," he said, eventually.

"Can I have a slice of your pie?" she asked, head nodding to the pie that he had sat on his lap.

He stared at her, dumbly. "It's apple."

"Yes."

"I-I don't have a fork." She reached into the pocket of her red parka and pulled out two plastic forks. "…Alright."

He placed the pie on the ground between them and she handed him a fork and together they ate his pie.

"This is good. You should bake pies for a living," she told him, face still blank, crimson eyes staring out into the darkness.

"I want to," he replied. His phone buzzed in his pocket, probably his aunt phoning to figure out where he had run off to again.

"I'd fund it," Peko hummed. There was a rip on the knee of her jeans. Hajime stared at it.

"I'll hold you to that," he'd said and she had smiled at him for the first time.

Later, Hajime would fall asleep in the bare living room of the house he used to share with his parents and he'd think about crimson eyes, a red parka and a hopeful smile.

(Years later, Hajime bought her a mug with stars painted on it. She'd smiled at him like she had then and Hajime had grinned back.)

/

Hajime had never actually met Gundham's girlfriend until this moment. He'd seen her from afar, all long blonde hair and white sundresses that flared at the waist.

She's wearing a sundress right now. It's snowing outside. Hajime is so tired.

"Well, how Gundham and I met was when I was attempting to summon Abbadon because I wanted eternal youth but before I could begin the incantation, Gundham ran in and stopped me. He explained later that I could have ended the world if I had gone through with the ritual! I am so sorry for that."

"We accept your apology," Nagito says, solemnly. Hajime elbows him in the ribs but she smiles at him.

"Sorry, what's your name?" Chiaki asks from beside her.

"Oh dear, sorry, I sometimes get so caught up in everything that I forget to introduce myself. My name is Sonia. Sonia Nevermind." She gives them all a dazzling smile.

Nagito leans over and whispers into Hajime's ear. "Is this the week of meeting new people or something?" Hajime snorts.

Fuyuhiko enters through the front doors and sits next to Chiaki. She smiles at him and his lips twitch in response. "Fuyuhiko, this is Sonia. Gundham's girlfriend?"

Fuyuhiko nods at her and she smiles back, brightly. Hajime wonders if everyone he meets now is always going to smile like they have the sun in their mouth.

"I wouldn't say that Gundham is my boyfriend," says Sonia.

"Oh?" Nagito asks, leaning over the counter, intrigued by the possible drama. Hajime rolls his eyes.

"Yes. I think life partner would be more appropriate. He protects me from both demons and men who disrespect me," Sonia replies, looking wistful.

Chiaki hums in thought. "Only one man has ever disrespected me. He's dead now."

Fuyuhiko's head shoots up from where it had been hunched over the menu to stare at Chiaki in shock. "Holy shit, did you kill him?"

"Nah," Chiaki says. "He died of a heart attack. It was unrelated."

Fuyuhiko looks like he wants to say something but just turns back to his menu. "You all are so weird," he mutters.

/

Here's the thing: Hajime knows that he isn't the smartest guy out there. Or the strongest, or the bravest. But he doesn't really think those things matter in the grand scheme of things. There are things that matter.

Fuyuhiko's grin. Peko's coffee stained mugs. Kazuichi's rough palms. Nagito's roller-skates. Chiaki's eyes as she gasped herself to life on that damp concrete.

Some days he wakes up and doesn't think it's enough. That these things can't keep him tethered to the Earth, that he'll go floating up up up, somewhere no one can ever reach him.

Other days he wakes up and likes to think it is enough.

(He hopes it is.)

/

Kyouko walks into The Pie Hole with her back straight and her eyes flashing. Hajime fears for his life for a moment before he remembers that he works with Peko every day and he saw her fiddling with a sharp knife again when he was cleaning up the other night. Hajime knows that it's Kyouko because he saw her coming out of the candy shop with one hand holding Makoto's and the other in the clasp of some blonde man who looked like he sneered for a living. Sneering must pay a lot, Hajime is 90% that he had ten Rolexes on his wrist.

She makes a bee line for Fuyuhiko who is mid-conversation with Kazuichi about the morals involved in honey making. Hajime abandons his pie display to pretend to clean the counter so he can listen in.

"We should work together," Kyouko says instead of hello or how are you like everyone else does.

Fuyuhiko twists on his stool and gives her a blank look. "…Anyway," he says, turning back to Kazuichi who is grinning at Kyouko as though he'd never seen a woman before. "Bees don't use the honey, so as long as they're treated well –"

"This is ridiculous," Kyouko interjects. "I'm a good detective and you seem to be as well, so what's the harm with working together?"

"I work alone," Fuyuhiko snaps.

Kyouko points a gloved finger at Hajime who jumps. "I thought he was your partner."

Hajime watches Fuyuhiko's face turn red with increasing wonder. "It's not like that! He-he has a boyfriend," he splutters.

Hajime snorts. Kyouko rolls her eyes. "I meant a professional partner." She looks like she is regretting offering to work with him.

Fuyuhiko squints at her and seems adamant about ignoring the flush across his cheeks. "How'd you know we work together, anyway?"

"I went to go and see Mikan's body and the man at the desk said that another man was with you. I guessed. And I was correct." She sits on the stool next to Fuyuhiko and picks up a menu.

"I could've been the partner!" Kazuichi exclaims.

"No," Kyouko replies without looking up. "Could I have a slice of pumpkin pie, please?"

"Sure," Hajime says.

"Thank you." She turns to Fuyuhiko once more. "We should work together. What leads have you got so far?" Fuyuhiko doesn't reply and glares at his cup of coffee. "I'm only going to keep pestering you until you cooperate," she points out.

"Why do you want to work with him so bad?" Hajime asks as he sets her plate in front of her.

"Thank you. My husband – Makoto, I believe you've met him? – wants me to make friends. So – " she spreads her hands out in front of her, "- here I am."

"You're doing a terrible job," Kazuichi grumbles, poking at his strawberry pie with his fork, evidently still upset about Kyouko's dismissal.

"I thought so," she sighs. "I just thought that a good mystery would help me make friends." She frowns at her pie as though it held all the secrets to good quality social interactions.

Fuyuhiko watches her for a moment before huffing a breath. "My only lead is Tsumiki's girlfriend, Junko Enoshima. But she won't let me in to talk to her. Something about 'emotional trauma'." He scoffs and takes a drink from his coffee cup.

He doesn't look at Kyouko so he doesn't see her smiling at him but Hajime does. She turns back to her pie and he passes her a cup of tea. "On the house," he tells her and receives another smile before he disappears into the kitchen.

Things are going quite well. That's why he knows they're about to go bad.

His suspicions are confirmed when he steps towards his ovens to check on his pies and as he turns around he sees Chiaki, standing by the back entrance to the building.

"I have something to tell you," she says, her voice steady and her eyes focused on the raspberries he left in a bowl on his workbench. "I got hit by a car when I was sixteen and I think I died but I don't know how I came back but what I have to say is - the person driving the car was Tsumiki."

Hajime feels his tether to Earth snap and he drifts away.

/

author's note: tried to make this funny but honestly? hajime is so angsty someone help my baby.

also like the image of peko and hajime eating pie on a street corner in the middle of winter - makes me so emosh, their friendship means so much to me.

anyway, my tumblr is bravemccalll come talk to me!  
until next time :D - nic


	4. Chapter 4

chapter four – bare your ribs for me?

Hajime wonders at what point it is in someone's life that something Happens to them and it Doesn't Matter. Like they aren't fazed anymore.

That point hasn't arrived for him yet and he wonders if it ever will if he continues to interact with Chiaki Nanami.

From the moment she told him who had killed her and now, Hajime had just stared at her.

Finally, she says, "I shouldn't have told you that."

Intelligently, Hajime responds, "Um."

"I really shouldn't have told you that." She starts pacing around his work-bench and he follows the movement with his eyes distantly. She continues to ramble, something about regret but Hajime isn't listening. His head's a million miles away. All he can see is Chiaki, dead on the road, crimson blood soaking the right knee of her white jeans, Tsumiki's pale body before she had sat up and stared into his eyes. These are both things he knows but now his mind is running away from him, racing down train tracks – now he's imagining Tsumiki driving a car and hitting her best friend, killing her best friend and he's trying to solve her murder and he can hear the train charging towards him with the realisation that he's trying to avenge a murderer, someone who had killed Chiaki, killed her –

"Don't!" he yelps suddenly, jumping back to reality in time to dodge Chiaki's outstretched hand.

She yanks it back, looking wounded. "I'm sorry, I know you don't like to be touched but you were shaking and I –"

"It's fine," Hajime says before he looks down at his fingers. They're trembling slightly and somehow this grounds him. "Don't worry about it. You said that you were –"

But Chiaki's shaking her head, rosy strands of hair whirling around her face. "Ignore me, I'm just talking crazy. I don't know why I said that. I'll just –"

"I believe you," he says and she freezes. She blinks up at him. "I believe you," he repeats.

There is moment of suspended silence between them before she smiles at him brilliantly. He thinks it might just be a moment, a private one between them if Nagito didn't roll in with a blur of bright colours to grab the extra sugar, pausing to give Hajime a concerned look that Hajime replies with a reassuring nod.

Nagito rolls out again and Hajime turns to Chiaki. She's fiddling with the sleeves of her lime green cardigan, rolling the fabric between the tips of her fingers. "Can we talk after work?" he asks.

She nods in return and with one last small smile, she disappears back out the back entrance.

Hajime watches her go and feels his head reattach itself to his shoulders. He feels more tired than he did before but he forces himself to turn towards his oven.

/

Here's the thing: Hajime is always exhausted. Nagito once joked that he could sleep for a hundred years and still be tired.

He thinks that his parents' death is a heavy anchor that weighs on his shoulders, pulling him down and dragging lethargy into his every step. He tries to ignore it but he knows that despite his olive skin, the skin under his eyes is black enough to warrant a second glance.

Nagito never really commented on them, mostly because his own bags appeared darker because of his pale skin.

(Hajime thinks it's also because Nagito didn't know Hajime Before. Sometimes he wonders if Nagito would have preferred him back then, more full of life and vibrant, all brash decisions and youthful joy.

Other times he thinks that he has a tendency to over-analyse and he should really just sleep.)

/

Hajime sends Peko home early and ignores the frown she sends him on her way out of the door. "I'll be fine," he'd said. "Don't worry about me."

"Not a day goes by where I don't, Hajime," she'd sighed and left.

Now, he's sitting in a booth and waits for Chiaki to turn up.

She shows up five minutes later, looking cold and hassled. She slips into the booth in front of him and he passes her a cup of coffee which makes her smile.

A beat of silence.

"So, do you want to-"

"I thought about what I'm going to say," Chiaki blurts out. Hajime blinks at her. "I never do that. My dad constantly told me when I was younger that I have never planned anything in my life, that I jump headfirst into everything. He used to say that I've landed always on soft ground but one day I was going to crack my skull on a rock."

"Oh," Hajime replies.

"I'm trying to say that I've…thought about it. You. About what I'm going to say to you that is." She flushes red. "Not that I'm thinking about you. Not that I don't like you. I do. But not too much, god you have a boyfriend, I'm not trying to –"

"Chiaki," Hajime interjects gently. "What do you want to tell me?"

She curls her hands around her coffee cup and he thinks that she's one of the prettiest women he's ever seen. "I want to tell you about what happened," she murmurs. He tries to nod encouragingly and thinks he did it half successfully. "It was New Year's Eve, about ten years ago? There was that party we were all at, remember? Well, I had left early because I just…wanted to go home, I guess. And I was crossing a road and I didn't look where I was going before it was too late and I got hit. And then I was lying there on the ground and I swear to you I died but then I wasn't…dead." She frowns at her coffee.

"How did you know it was Tsumiki?" he asks.

"It was her mum's car. Besides when I looked up, I saw her behind the wheel." She shrugs as though this were a nonchalant conversation. The roots of her hair were dark near her scalp, stark against the baby pink of her hair. He remembers her with dark hair in high school.

"Why did you – you said she was your best friend recently, after she had – you know. So, why did you -"

"Forgive her?" Chiaki sighs and rolls her shoulders. "Tsumiki was…troubled. Around about that time she started drinking. I tried to stop her but I couldn't always be there, you know? I think she was drunk and she had stolen her mum's car and it was all an unfortunate coincidence that I happened to be in front of her car. Of course I was angry, but Tsumiki had been through some things that I can only imagine. Allowances had to be made." She laughs without any mirth. "I actually asked her the next day what she had done that night. She couldn't remember anything." She gazed out the window into the dark. "She wouldn't hurt me on purpose. It was an accident."

"You deserve better," Hajime says. Chiaki startles and gazes over at him. She has very open eyes, the kind that ask you to confess all your problems, that tell you that she'll fix everything. "Friendship shouldn't be about making allowances for each other. No one should get…hurt."

Chiaki simply hums and turns back to the window.

Hajime is overcome with the urge to tell her everything; his powers, his parents, how he and Kazuichi met, how he and Nagito met, about how Peko always takes two sugars in her coffee but only one in her tea, about how Fuyuhiko secretly gave half his earnings from cases to charity and thought no one knew about it. To tell her about his relationships with all these people, how they would never make him feel like he had to excuse their behaviour.

"Chiaki?" She hums in response. "You did die that night." She turns to look at him, open eyes and dark roots. "I brought you back."

She stares at him for a moment and he feels his heart scrape against his ribs. "I believe you," she says and he smiles.

/

Here's the thing: Hajime hates telling people about his powers. With Fuyuhiko, it had been an accident, with Kazuichi he'd been young enough that he barely remembers it.

With Nagito it had been drawn out and awkward. He remembers saying statements with double meanings and ominous subtext until Nagito had cornered him and demanded a straight answer.

With Peko it had been so quick that sometimes he wonders if it had really happened. One moment he was kneading dough and watching her clean his knives and the next she knew his biggest secret and she'd only spared a single glance at him before she nodded as though she'd known all along.

(With Chiaki it had been like a soft landing after falling for decades. He tries not to over analyse it.)

/

"No," Fuyuhiko says.

"I must agree with Kuzuryuu here," Kyouko admits, a slight tick of her eyebrow the only tell of how she felt about the situation. "Four is a bit…much."

"The Scooby Doo Gang had five members," Hajime points out.

"One of them was a dog," Kyouko says.

"So…you're saying we need a dog?" Chiaki asks. Hajime snorts.

All four of them are crowded at the side of Fuyuhiko's car outside of Junko Enoshima's flat. Kyouko is wearing a hat that makes her resemble Sherlock Holmes and Hajime thinks it's only half ironic. Fuyuhiko looks dead in the eyes whilst Chiaki looks happy enough to simply be present.

"Why is she here?" Fuyuhiko asks, jerking a thumb at Chiaki who is pulling a magnifying glass and passing it to Kyouko.

"Because she knows," Hajime says simply.

"Knows what?" Kyouko asks, peering at him with one eye through her recently acquired magnifying glass.

"If were to let everyone who knew into this club then we'd be up to ten members," Fuyuhiko says.

"This is a club?" Chiaki wonders, looking mystified.

"Yes," Kyouko answers, looking an inch away from being overly proud. "Makoto told me that people make friends in clubs, ergoe we are now in a club."

"What's the club's name?" Chiaki asks.

"It's not a club," Fuyuhiko interjects.

"The Solving Murders Club," Kyouko says.

"You just said it was a club," Hajime says. "Besides, I like clubs."

Fuyuhiko groans and scrubs his face with his gloved hands. "Let's just get this over with," he grumbles, heading for the steps to Junko's door. He knocks on the door and they all wait patiently for an answer.

There is a moment of quiet.

"Hey Hajime," Chiaki whispers from next to him. "If you're not in who's baking the pies?"

"Peko," Hajime answers.

"Peko can't bake," Fuyuhiko scoffs, turning to give Hajime a raised eyebrow.

"I didn't know that you knew anything ever about Peko," Hajime says.

"I don't," Fuyuhiko snaps and turns back to the door.

"Well, he's right. Peko can't bake. I had to prepare all of them so all she has to do is put them in the ovens. I have Nagito monitoring her so they don't burn, just in case," says Hajime.

"Smart," Chiaki replies, tapping her temple. Her gloves are a bright white that remind him distinctly of Nagito.

Kyouko leans over Chiaki to speak to Hajime. "That shows good efficiency and time management skills. You will be a valuable member of the Solving Murders Club. Well done." She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a slip of paper with a multitude of stickers on it. She peels off one with a golden thumbs up on it and GOOD JOB! written on it and sticks it on his chest. He raises an eyebrow at her. "Byakuya told me that stickers bring up club morale."

"Oh," Hajime says. "Thank you."

She smiles at him, a quick quirk of her lips that's there and then gone again. "You're very welcome."

A phone pings. Hajime frowns. "Not mine."

"Not mine," Chiaki says.

Kyouko takes her phone out of her pocket and checks it. "Not mine," she says.

They all stare at Fuyuhiko's back. Slowly, he reaches his hand into his back pocket and pulls out the pinkest phone he has ever seen. A charm dangles from the edge. It's of a little poodle with a pink collar and fluffy white fur. Glitter falls off the entire contraption with every movement Fuyuhiko makes.

He checks it. Fuyuhiko clears his throat. "Peko wanted to know if you had any spare pie tins."

"I don't," Hajime says, absently.

"I thought so," he replies before typing Hajime's response and letting his phone disappear back into the depths of his pocket, all the while keeping his back to everyone.

"You don't even phone me. Ever. Why do you text Peko?" Hajime asks.

Before Fuyuhiko can reply, the door swings open. Hajime feels Chiaki jump at his side and double checks that he has his gloves on before he presses his hand on her back.

Junko Enoshima stands in the doorway and stares them all down, one by one. "I have decided," she announces with a flick of her blonde hair, "That I am ready to talk." She turns on her heel and disappears back into her home.

Hajime glances at Chiaki for a moment before all of them step into the unknown.


	5. Chapter 5

chapter five – red scores on my ribcage

Chiaki remembers a dream she had once when she was twenty. Tsumiki had been in it. Chiaki's dream-self had been standing in front of a full-length mirror in white clothing. Tsumiki had come out from behind her with a human heart in her hand.

"Thank you for this," Tsumiki had said to her and smiled. "But I don't need it anymore." Then her heart had slipped from her best friend's fingers and landed with a splat on the concrete beneath their feet.

Some blood splashed on her bare ankle. She woke up with a strangled gasp to the sound of her phone ringing, Tsumiki's name printed at the top of the screen.

(She wonders if this is why when Tsumiki died, she felt free, as though a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She'd given Tsumiki all that she could bare to and was left estranged in the final years of her friend's short life.

She wonders if by solving this murder, she'll finally find closure. So, she could finally look in the mirror and say _See? I'm not a terrible person, I found the culprit. I did everything right._

She wonders if it will make the sick relief she feels in her ribs disappear. She hopes so.)

/

Junko Enoshima's apartment is… memorable to say the least. All the walls in the hallway, and from what she can see through a cracked doorway to what looks like a bedroom, are a luminous green whilst all the carpeting is a crimson red. There are pictures hanging on the walls at various different angles.

Chiaki stops by one framed photo of Tsumiki and Junko on a beach somewhere. Tsumiki is grinning helplessly at Junko whilst Junko herself makes a face at the camera. Chiaki traces her fingers around Tsumiki's smile and feels like a horrible person for feeling at peace when she found out that Tsumiki had died.

Behind her, she can hear Hajime talking to Fuyuhiko. "I'm sorry, but was your phone…pink?"

"You have eyes. You should have used them," Fuyuhiko replies.

"Kyouko, did I hallucinate that Fuyuhiko's phone was covered in glitter or was that real?"

"I saw it all as well," Kyouko says, coolly.

"Why – Why is… I just don't understand why -?"

Chiaki can hear Fuyuhiko rolling his eyes. She turns around in time to catch him in the act and can't help the smile that slips out.

"Did someone important buy you it?" Kyouko asks, her face passive but her eyes impossibly intelligent.

Fuyuhiko starts and glares at her. "No – what are you talking – what? No, why would – no –"

"You're turning red," Chiaki points out. He turns his glare to her as well. She smiles brightly in return.

"Are you coming through to the living room or not?" Chiaki looks over and sees Junko poking her head around a door. Something about the way she cocks her head annoys Chiaki.

"Of course," Kyouko says and leads the way towards Junko.

The living room's walls are crimson red and the carpet is lime green. Chiaki isn't sure if this is an improvement.

Junko settles into a white rocking chair and gestures towards her leather sofa. "Have a seat," she intones in an English accent. Chiaki already wants to leave.

Chiaki sits on one side of the sofa whilst Hajime sits on the other. He scoots as far away as he can and she has to remind herself that it's nothing personal. Kyouko leans against the arm of the couch next to Hajime whilst Fuyuhiko stands with his arms crossed in front of the doorway.

"Alright," Fuyuhiko says. "Talk."

Junko gives him a simpering smile but turns her attention to Chiaki. "I can't believe we haven't spoken in so long. I'm so sorry that it had to be under these circumstances." She pouts and Chiaki feels her muscles tense.

"There's a reason we don't talk, Junko. Just tell us where you were the night Tsumiki died so we can leave," Chiaki says.

Junko sighs. "You always were boring. Well, I was having dinner here with my best friend. He can confirm my alibi."

"Is there anyone you can think of that would have any cause to murder Tsumiki?" Fuyuhiko asks. Chiaki likes that he looks equally as annoyed with Junko as she is.

"No one. Tsumiki was well loved in our group." Junko gives Chiaki a sly grin. "So sorry that you couldn't be a part of our little family."

Chiaki feels so tense that she wonders if she's about to break a bone out of sheer anger. "I think you've already made your view perfectly clear, Junko. If there's nothing else you can tell us, we'll leave."

Chiaki stands and Hajime goes to join her but she freezes before she can take a step out the door. "I have to say; what kind of person doesn't talk to her 'best friend' for two years?" Junko makes exaggerated air quotes. "Maybe it's just me, but I don't think you really have a right to march in here with your nose in the air as though you're above me when I was the one who was actually there for her."

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Chiaki snaps.

"Don't I?" Junko's eyes glitter, her grin turns feral.

"We're done here. Have a good day, Enoshima," Kyouko says and presses a firm hand on Chiaki's back to guide her out. Chiaki focuses on the warmth through her coat and ignores how much she wants to punch a wall, or Junko's face.

/

Here's the thing: Chiaki hates Junko. Tsumiki loved her. One night, two years ago, they had a fight. Chiaki had told Tsumiki that she deserved better. Tsumiki told her that she did. Then she had deleted Chiaki's number from her phone.

(She'd added it again a week later. She had phoned Chiaki two weeks later. But by then Chiaki realised that she had become less important than Junko in Tsumiki's eyes. The damage had been done.)

/

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Nope."

"Alright."

Nagito sits across from Chiaki, his back pressed against Hajime's work bench. Chiaki doesn't know where Hajime is. The Pie Hole had been closed for an hour. The only light that was left on was the one in the kitchen that they both sat in.

Nagito reaches down and starts untying his roller-skates. He has pretty fingers, all long and pale. She wonders if he plays the piano.

"How did you meet Hajime?" she asks before she can stop herself.

He looks up at her in surprise before he slips one foot out of a roller-skate and rolls it towards her. She pushes it back and forth idly. "Well, we met when we were twenty-two. I was skinny dipping in the lake near Woodgrove park. It was like, two in the morning and Hajime had been wandering the streets like he usually does. He saw me and just kind of, stopped. I told him to take a photo if he wanted to admire me but then he started lecturing me about the dangers of hypothermia. It was the middle of summer. He swam out to me and got his clothes soaked just so he could drag me to his apartment and give me hot tea. The rest was history."

Chiaki smiles. "When did he tell you about his…gift?"

Nagito lets out an exaggerated groan and rolls his head back so it can thud against bench. "Oh, dear lord. We had been dating a year and let me tell you, he was much less straight-forward than he was with you. He kept saying these really weird things like once we passed this dead pigeon and I was like 'Oh, what a shame.' And I swear he said, 'If only someone could bring it back.' And then gave me this look." Nagito raises an eyebrow at Chiaki in an imitation of Hajime.

Chiaki laughs. "Seriously?" she giggles.

"Yep. I had to corner him and ask him what the fuck he was on about before he actually told me." Nagito shakes his head fondly. "Dummy." He glances at Chiaki. "Did he tell you about all the rules?"

Chiaki nods. "Yeah. Now I know why he won't let me touch him and vice versa. Thought he was just secretly disgusted with me or something."

Nagito snorts. "Nah, Hajime likes you." He regards her critically for a moment. "You're very…nonchalant about the whole thing. Aren't you weirded out, like, just a little."

Chiaki shrugs helplessly. "I guess I'm glad that I wasn't crazy, you know? I felt like I was, what with the whole dying on New Year's thing. His powers explain a lot that I've tried to ignore for a while now."

"I'm sorry that Tsumiki killed you," Nagito says, quietly. "I think you deserve better than that."

Chiaki gives him a watery smile. "Thanks."

He rolls her his other roller-skate and she thinks that this is something pure, something solid. Something she needs.

/

Here's the thing: Chiaki likes to the think that she's kind. She tries her best to be nice to everyone that she meets, because you never know what someone is going through.

But something about Junko gets to her.

When she isn't there, Chiaki can be calm and collected. She can direct. But as soon as she's standing in front of her, Chiaki can feel her blood start to boil.

(There was one occasion just after Tsumiki had introduced her that Chiaki had thrown a glass bottle at the wall of her kitchen. She'd cleaned up the mess and told herself that she'd never lose her cool like that again.)

(She broke that promise multiple times.)

/

"I can't give you a warm hug right now but know if I could, I would."

Hajime flashes her a smile. "Thanks."

Kyouko clucks her tongue at them. "Focus."

"Sorry, Kyouko," Chiaki and Hajime say at the same time.

Kyouko sits on a stool beside them, her laptop open in front of her. "What colour should we go with?"

Hajime shrugs. He turns his attention back to Chiaki. "Why do you want to hug me?"

"Why not?"

Kyouko makes a thoughtful noise. "What colour would best suit our club?"

"I think you're thinking too much in depth about how our Solving Murders Clubs t-shirts should look," Hajime tells Kyouko.

"Nonsense," Chiaki says. "If anything, she's not thinking _enough_."

"Chiaki is right. Next, we should discuss font and font size," Kyouko says and turns to her laptop with a renewed vigour.

The door opens behind them. Chiaki turns around and sees Fuyuhiko stride in and head straight for the kitchen. "Hey where are you –" Hajime starts but Fuyuhiko ignores him and disappears in the back. "Where is he going?"

"Peko's office is back there," Chiaki says and looks at Kyouko's laptop. A site for personalising t-shirts is on it. "Maybe we should make jackets." Kyouko smiles at her. Chiaki smiles back.

Hajime looks confused. "What is he doing in Peko's office?"

He furrows his brows when he's confused. She has to stop herself from reaching out and smoothing out the crease.

"Probably because Kuzuryuu and Pekoyama are engaging in a secret relationship that they don't want anyone to know about because they don't want Souda in particular to know about it but they are terrible at hiding what they're doing." Hajime gapes at her. She angles the laptop towards Chiaki. "Do black bomber jackets with the club name on the right breast look good?"

"Yup," Chiaki chirps and receives a quirk of Kyouko's lips in return.

Hajime stares down at the counter in front of him. "I'm so done with working here," he says.

Chiaki laughs.

/

Here's the thing: Chiaki likes Kyouko.

Kyouko, who is vaguely socially awkward and only ever offers small smiles to people.

Kyouko, with her lilac hair that she ties up in a tight ponytail and the black ties that she wears.

She gives Chiaki pink taffies and Chiaki gives her chocolate.

It's one of the calmer relationships Chiaki has in her life right now.

(She didn't know how much she had needed it until Kyouko was passing her a box filled with her favourite flavour of taffy.)

/

The day that December begins, Chiaki walks with Peko like she does every morning into The Pie Hole and is greeted with Nagito standing in his roller-skates, on the counter, hanging up Christmas decorations.

"I hope you know," Peko says, looking resigned. "That your insurance doesn't cover stupidity."

"I don't know what you just said so it means nothing to me," Nagito chimes.

Peko sighs and heads for her office. Chiaki walks up to Nagito who is sticking Christmas fairy lights onto the ceiling. "Where's Hajime?"

"Getting a new shipment of fruit round the back. Why?" Nagito says around a roll of cello tape.

"Well, I was just wondering if he would actually let you do this in roller-skates. Or just in general."

Nagito waves a hand dismissively. "Pshh. He loves me too much to stop me."

Chiaki hears the door open behind her and braces for carnage.

"Hey, Chiaki, can you get Peko for me- oh my god get off the counter, get off the counter!"

Hajime sprints forward and wraps his arms around Nagito's thighs and lifts him up and onto the ground. Nagito laughs hysterically. "Come on, babe, not in public, we talked about this."

"I want a divorce," Hajime groans.

"We're not married."

"I want to get married just so I can divorce you."

Chiaki snorts. Hajime smiles at her before turning back to his boyfriend. "It's the first of December."

"Yes," Nagito replies.

"Christmas isn't for another 25 days."

"Yes," Nagito replies.

Hajime just stares at Nagito. Nagito raises an eyebrow. Hajime looks away with a deep sigh and heads for the kitchen.

"Does he lift weights or something because he picked you up without breaking a sweat."

Nagito only winks at her and climbs back on the counter.

/

Here's the thing: everyone who Chiaki has met so far has their own style.

Peko and Fuyuhiko are very similar with Fuyuhiko constantly wearing suits and Peko constantly wearing pant suits.

(Chiaki lives in her guest bedroom but she has yet to see Peko wear pyjamas.)

Hajime always wears all black with his dirty apron tied around his waist. Kazuichi usually just wears his bright overalls from his garage down the road.

But, Nagito. He is in a whole other league.

Chiaki has yet to see him not wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Or cheetah print. Or zebra print. Or any type of animal print.

She asked him once why he never wears something that doesn't hurt everyone's eyes. He'd grinned at her and replied, "Peko secretly pays me to wear all these clothes."

(Chiaki isn't sure she's ready to ask Peko herself and deal with the fact that it could be true. Stranger things have happened.)

/

It takes a couple of days for Nagito to set up all the decorations but once they're up, The Pie Hole looks like a mini Winter Wonderland. There are fairy lights everywhere and small Christmas trees on every table. All the plates have little Santas on them.

Chiaki is in heaven.

"Christmas was my favourite holiday when I was younger," she tells Hajime, sitting with her legs crossed on what has slowly became her stool.

"I think it was everyone's favourite holiday when they were younger," Hajime says from where he's wiping down the counters.

"Irrelevant," she says. "Isn't that Nagito's job?" she adds, gesturing to Hajime's action.

"It is, but he's busy trying to break the Guinness World Record of the number of puns one person can make in a single day."

"Guess you could say I'm _pan_ -sexual," Nagito shouts from the kitchen.

"If I turn around and you're holding a pan, I'm leaving you," Hajime replies without looking up.

From over Hajime's shoulder, Chiaki sees Nagito lower his frying pan. She snorts.

The door opens behind her. She spins around on her stool, expecting to see Fuyuhiko and preparing to ask him what he's going to get Peko for Christmas. She'd been working up her nerve to ask him for the past few days and she finally feels confident enough that he won't kill her if she does. Not in The Pie Hole at least.

But the teasing remark dies on her lips as she sees Junko Enoshima standing with her hands on her hips by the door.

"Hello," she grins. Chiaki's good mood sours.

"Do you need something?" Hajime asks. "We're closed right now."

Junko pouts at him. "It's ten in the morning."

"Thanks, I didn't ask," Hajime replies. If Chiaki wasn't too preoccupied with the burning annoyance she felt whenever Junko was near her, she would be impressed at how sassy Hajime could be.

Junko sighs, and tosses one of her bunches over her shoulder. "Well, if the Solving Murders Club don't need my help then I guess I'll leave…"

She turns on her heel but Chiaki is speaking before she can stop herself. "Wait! What…What do you want to say?"

Junko winks at her over her shoulder. "Oh, bless you darling. Well, I just came over to tell you that I think that you should question my sister, Mukuro."

"Why?" Hajime asks.

"She doesn't have an alibi," Junko says, and turns to face them again. "And I was suspicious of her when Tsumiki… you know." She dabs a tissue at the corner of her eyes and Chiaki wonders how one person can be so fake.

"Why didn't you tell us this when we were at your apartment last week?" Hajime says.

"Why, I was too scared," Junko gasps theatrically, one hand rising to rest on her heart. "My sister is a fearsome creature, I thought she would kill me too!"

Chiaki restrains the urge to roll her eyes. "Well, thank you for the clue," Chiaki grits out. "Have a nice day."

"That desperate to get rid of me?" Junko smirks.

"Yep," Hajime says.

"Fine. I hope it leads somewhere." Without a second look back, Junko exits The Pie Hole and disappears into the snow swirling outside.

Silence settles around them.

"God," Nagito says, rolling out of the kitchen. "What a bitch."

Hajime hums his agreement and returns to work.

Chiaki taps her nails on her knee and wonders why Junko's sister would kill Tsumiki. She texts Kyouko what Junko told her and waits.

She feels Hajime and Nagito's eyes on the back of her neck but she doesn't look up. There's nothing she can say.

/

author's note: i havent really got anything new to add lmao.

just the usual: my tumblr is bravemccalll  
comments make my day so please drop me one  
and I hope you enjoy the rest of the story! - nic


	6. Chapter 6

chapter six – where are my lungs? where is my heart?

"Ok, I'm not saying that by wearing the Solving Murders Club jacket, you are endorsing that it is both an actual club and something that you want to be a part of, but that is exactly what I'm saying."

Fuyuhiko glares at Hajime.

Hajime ignores him. "You know, I've never seen you _not_ wear a suit."

Fuyuhiko snorts. "I don't always wear a suit."

"Could've fooled me."

It's true, Fuyuhiko sits in the booth across from Hajime wearing a white t-shirt, black jeans and the Solving Murders Club bomber jacket. Peko slides into the booth next to Fuyuhiko. She raises an eyebrow at Hajime. "I don't pay you to sit around and talk to our customers."

"Yeah, but you do pay me to sit around and talk to your _boyfriend_ ," Hajime retorts. Fuyuhiko coughs and flushes whereas Peko stares at Hajime, looking unimpressed. After a moment, she looks away and adjusts her glasses – an admission of embarrassment coming from Peko. "How could you not tell me? I thought we were friends." Hajime pretends to pout at them for a moment before he gives up. Nagito was always better at it anyway.

"We didn't want Kazuichi to know," Peko says, simply. "And if you knew, you would tell him because you're very close friends."

"Why didn't you want Kazuichi to know?" Hajime asks. He watches Peko shift in her seat, her body slightly tilted to Fuyuhiko. Fuyuhiko brushes his fingers against her forearm. Hajime wonders how he didn't notice it sooner.

"I could do without the sex jokes that I know he would make," Peko says. "The only reason he doesn't make them about you and Nagito is because I think he doesn't want to think about Nagito as someone who has sex. Ever."

"True," Hajime relents. "But I feel like he'd be too afraid of you and Fuyuhiko to say anything too vulgar and – "

"Oh my god! What's up you dirty dogs? I can't believe you two have been doing it this whole time, you naughty boys and girls! Did you ever pork in the kitchen –"

Peko whips a knife out and points it at Kazuichi. "Another word," she warns.

Kazuichi nods shakily. "Got it. You are sexless creatures. Loud and clear. I've got to go and – yep." Kazuichi speeds towards the counter and huddles in one of the stools furthest away from Peko.

"Huh," Peko observes. "That was easy."

Fuyuhiko sighs dreamily from beside her but straightens up when he notices that Hajime is staring at him.

" _Assassin_ ," Nagito whispers to Hajime as he skates past.

"What did he say?" Peko asks.

"Nothing," Hajime says, hurriedly. "Well, pies to bake and whatnot. Have fun you two, but not too much fun. Nagito says he doesn't want any extra scrubbing to do on the seats."

He hears Fuyuhiko splutter from behind him and Peko laugh at him. He seriously wonders how he didn't notice it before.

/

Here's the thing: Hajime has known Fuyuhiko for two years but he knows next to nothing about him. The only thing he actually knows about Fuyuhiko's past is what he had told him when they both got drunk in The Pie Hole in celebration of the first case they had solved together.

"Did you know," Fuyuhiko had said. "That my dad hates me."

"Oh?" Hajime had replied.

"Yup. Like full on hatred. He cut off all ties with me."

"Why?" Hajime asked.

"Because he hates me," Fuyuhiko said, leaning his head against Hajime's shoulder with a sigh.

"Oh."

Fuyuhiko hummed.

"Hey, Fuyuhiko?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't hate you."

"Thanks."

(Peko had found them hours later, passed out and leaning against each other, their hands linked together.

They never talked about it.)

/

"Have you ever brought anyone else back?" Chiaki asks him whilst she's perched on his work-bench, her legs swinging idly.

"Only a few fireflies with Kaz when I was younger," Hajime answers, sliding a rhubarb pie into his oven. "No one permanent."

"Why?"

"Well, someone else has to die if I bring anyone back for more than a minute and I didn't really want to deal with the moral dilemmas that come with that," Hajime says.

"But you brought me back," Chiaki points out.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure," Hajime says. He looks at her. Her hair is starting to brush the top of her shoulders. "I didn't really think about it. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I was thinking of starting a club." Hajime gives her a disbelieving look. "You know, Dealing With The Fact That We Were Dead But Now Aren't Thanks To Hajime."

"Kind of a mouthful," he hums. "Besides, isn't one club enough for you?"

"Oh, one of anything could never sate me," she laughs. "Guess that's my none of my relationships lasted." Hajime stares at her. She flushes a pretty pink. "I did not mean to say that."

"I figured."

"Can we pretend I didn't say that," she pleads.

"Sure," he says, regretting it already.

She opens her mouth and he hopes it's to take back what she just said, so they can talk about it and maybe discuss it some more but a loud screech interrupts her.

She frowns and leaps off the bench and heads towards the front of the diner. Hajime follows her.

Some customers are crowded by the windows but Chiaki and Hajime head right out of the front doors.

"Oh my god," Chiaki gasps.

In front of them are dark skid marks on the road and sprawled out on the concrete pavement is a blonde Labrador. Hajime feels like he's going to be sick.

"Oh no, please don't," Chiaki whimpers and crouches by the dog. She places her hand on the side of the dog's stomach and her hand comes back stained red. She sniffles.

"What the fuck?" Fuyuhiko says as he walks up with Kyouko beside him.

Chiaki sniffles and looks up at Hajime with watery eyes. "Please," she says. He's struck with the urge to touch her, to comfort her but he can't. "Please."

Fuyuhiko comes to stand beside Hajime. "Are you kidding me?"

Hajime looks at him helplessly. Kyouko looks confused. "The dog is dead," she states. "It looks like a hit and run. What can Hajime do about this?"

"Oh Hajime, a _hit and run_. It's just like me! Please give it another chance, you did with me," says Chiaki, her arms wrapping around the dog, lifting it to lay across her lap. Hajime feels his resolve crumble.

"I feel like we've had this discussion before, but my life isn't equal to a dog, is it? Because otherwise, I'm gonna have to start running as you seem dead set on this course of action."

"What is going on?" Kyouko asks.

"I think a pigeon is going to pay the price for this," Hajime says. Fuyuhiko crosses his arm. Chiaki smiles wetly at him.

Hajime sighs and reaches a hand down and touches the dog.

It surges up and huffs. It looks around them all before it settles its eyes on Chiaki. With a quiet bark, it presses its face against Chiaki's neck. Chiaki giggles and hugs it.

"Oh," Kyouko says, looking vaguely startled. Hajime glances at her from the corner of his eyes, suddenly realising that she could through him in the nearest research facility to be tested on for the rest of his life without ever seeing his family ever again -

Instead, she turns to Fuyuhiko and places her hands on her hips. "Intuitive brilliance? You were just using Hajime to solve all your mysteries, weren't you?"

Fuyuhiko looks at her sheepishly whilst Chiaki continues to giggle on the ground beside them.

"Oh," Chiaki says, suddenly. "Can it join the Solving Murders Club? So, we can officially be the Scooby Doo Gang?"

Hajime feels surprisingly happy.

/

Here's the thing: Hajime had a dog once. When he was younger, he had owned a small terrier named Heather that barked like mad whenever someone she didn't know came too close.

Heather had a heart attack and died in front of Hajime just after he had turned twelve.

Hajime had reached out blindly and then suddenly she was up again, grinning at him with a mouth full of teeth in that way she always had.

A couple of hours later, Hajime had reached out to pat her and she was gone again.

(Hajime had wondered if he should get used to it, everyone leaving him before he was ready for them to go.)

/

"What should we call her?" Peko asks.

"It's a girl?" Fuyuhiko asks from beside her, his head leaning on the door to the storage behind him. He looks tired. Hajime wonders what has been keeping sleep from him.

"Yep," says Chiaki. She sits cross-legged on the floor, her knees poking through the holes in her pale jeans. The dog lies on her back in front of her, grinning up at her, lopsidedly.

"It's a stray. It could have fleas. And you're letting it into a kitchen," Fuyuhiko says. His eyes have shut now. There are faint bags beneath them. Peko looks at him with concern, her brows furrowed.

"Peko and I took her to the vet earlier," Chiaki says, reaching out to stroke the dog's belly. "She's clean."

"Can we call her Cheeto?" Kazuichi asks.

"Never," everyone replies simultaneously. Kazuichi pouts.

"Perhaps we could name her something incredibly pretentious," Nagito suggests. "Like Elizabeth?"

Hajime snorts. "Is this you just trying to replace the lizard from your childhood?"

Nagito's pouts and Hajime almost feels bad. "It died too young, Hajime!"

"Or we could name it – her - Sherlock?" says Kyouko. "Seeing as she is a part of the Solving Murders Club."

Chiaki hums. "Or we could name her Watson?" The dog barks happily. "Watson? Do you want to be called Watson?" The dog scrambles to its feet and bounces around. "I think we found a name for her."

Hajime finds himself smiling but it disappears when he sees Fuyuhiko wince. "Are you alright, Fuyuhiko?"

Fuyuhiko shakes his head dismissively. "I'm fine, stop fussing." Peko frowns at him. "I'm fine, darling. Honestly."

Kazuichi looks at Hajime from where he's perched on his work-bench. _Darling?_ He mouths. _Jealous?_ Hajime mouths back. Kazuichi looks offended.

Kyouko reaches a hand up and massages her temple. "I must admit that I am feeling under the weather as well. I am afraid that I will have to retire for the day. Before I forget, my husband, Makoto, wanted me to give you this." She reaches into her bag and pulls out a worn looking leash. "He heard about the dog and wanted you to have this. It was used with his own dog once. My other husband, Byakuya, wanted me to give you this." She pulls out a diamond studded collar with a blank name tag attached to it. "He can be nice when he wants to be." She places them in Hajime's hand and disappears out the front door.

"Is there a bug going around or something?" Kazuichi asks. "'Cause if so, no offense, but stay away from me. I have a shit immune system and I don't want to catch anything."

"Oh no," Fuyuhiko drawls. "Staying away from you? God, life is too cruel."

Watson trots over to Fuyuhiko and presses her face against his thigh. Against his will, he smiles and pets her head.

Hajime passes the stuff Kyouko gave to him to Nagito and thinks that everyone looks content.

/

Here's the thing: Hajime remembers his first encounter with Peko vividly, but his second encounter with her is vaguer.

He'd seen her through a crowd, exiting some high-brow gala when he was twenty. He'd been wandering the streets without direction and out of the corner of his eye he'd seen her about to enter a limo. She'd been wearing a floor length, crimson gown that flared out at the waist and glittered in the moonlight.

He'd stared at her and tried to connect the image of her at eighteen, sitting in a red parka beside him on a curb, chewing on apple pie with the image in front of him.

She'd made eye contact with him and for a moment looked startled, as though she had just come out of a dream. But the next moment she was gone and Hajime had been sure that he would never see her again.

(One year later, they stood in front of the building where they had met, that would soon become The Pie Hole, that she had just bought with all her allowance and he wondered if Peko knew how wondrous she was in his eyes.

She smiled at him almost nervously and he knew that she didn't and thought that was a damn shame.)

/

"When we get a visit from the health inspector, will I also lose my job?" Nagito asks him.

"Honey, the only way you'd lose your job is if anyone realises that you never actually do any work," Hajime says.

"But, you'd never betray me like that," Nagito says.

"Exactly. So, your job is safe. Besides, don't pretend you don't like Watson."

"I could like Watson," Nagito relents. "But she makes you sad because I know you want to pat her but can't. Therefore, I don't like her."

"Aw, babe." Hajime presses a hand to his heart, only semi-mockingly. "That's so romantic."

"But, she is cute so in another way I totally like her. Maybe more than I like you…"

"Betrayal," Hajime deadpans. Nagito smiles sweetly at him and presses a kiss to his cheek before tugging off his nametag and stuffing it in his pocket.

"Don't stay here too late, yeah?"

With a final kiss, Nagito skates out the door and heads home. Hajime turns and makes his way to the front counter where the rest of the members of the Solving Murders Club sit.

"Take your time," Fuyuhiko says when Hajime comes to stand beside him. He only frowns, noting how the circles underneath Fuyuhiko's eyes have gotten darker.

"Fuyuhiko and I have been searching for Junko's sister but we haven't uncovered much. We know her name is Mukuro and that she used to be a part of the army but not much else," says Kyouko.

"Do you know where she is?" Chiaki asks, reaching a hand down to stroke Watson's head.

"She used to live in an apartment near Junko but she isn't there anymore. In fact, that really weird guy that eats here? Him and his girlfriend live there now," says Fuyuhiko.

"Gundham?" Hajime asks.

"Yeah," says Fuyuhiko. "That's the guy."

"We were hoping that you could ask him some questions, figure out if she left anything in the apartment when she left?" Kyouko asks.

"Yeah, of course," says Hajime.

"I also managed to get a hold of some CCTV footage of the Woodgrove Park the night Tsumiki was murdered but it doesn't show us much." Kyouko opens up her laptop and shows everyone a video on it.

The screen is dark but Hajime can make out the shape of some trees and a pathway. Suddenly, from the corner of the screen, two figures appear. One is Tsumiki, her skin pale and bright in contrast to everything around her. She seems drunk and leans heavily on the second figure who appears to be wearing a large, black jacket with the hood hiding their identity. They walk down the pathway and disappear offscreen.

"Does it show the killer leaving?" Chiaki asks. She looks pale.

"Not on this camera. Or any other that I've checked. There must be a way out the park without any cameras that the killer knows about," Kyouko muses.

"If there is why didn't the killer bring Tsumiki that way in the first place," Fuyuhiko points out.

"Perhaps they didn't want her to be suspicious? It might be underground or something. It seems that they got her drunk so that she would go with them wherever they went but maybe if they went somewhere too weird then Tsumiki might have ran," says Hajime.

"Have you ever met Mukuro, Chiaki?" Kyouko asks.

"Once. It was at Tsumiki's twenty-third birthday party. She seemed very polite." Chiaki frowns. "I know she was in the army but I don't know if I believe she would kill Tsumiki. I mean, why would she?"

Kyouko closes her laptop with a sigh. "Why does anyone do anything?" She taps her fingers on the lid of the device, thinking. They watch her for moment before she returns her focus to them. "Perhaps she didn't want to. But had to."

"Why would she have to kill Tsumiki?" Fuyuhiko asks.

"I don't know," Kyouko says. "But I have a feeling that Junko is more involved than we think."

"How so?" says Hajime.

"I'm not sure yet." Kyouko shakes her head. "I'll have to think about it some more. Hajime make sure to ask Gundham if he noticed anything weird in his apartment. Otherwise, there's not much else we can do. Goodnight." She hops off her stool and leaves The Pie Hole.

Fuyuhiko groans and buries his head in his hands. Hajime frowns at him. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Leave me alone," Fuyuhiko snaps. He grabs his Solving Murders Club jacket and disappears out the front door as well.

Chiaki purses her lips. "I hope he's alright," she murmurs.

Hajime nods. "Me too. Has he seen off to you lately?"

"I don't really know him that well but something does seem to be bothering him."

Hajime hums in agreement. "Remind me to ask Peko if there's anything we can do. Speaking of, isn't she your ride home?"

Chiaki gasps. "Oh yeah, she is. I don't know the way to her apartment yet." She makes a face at Watson who rests her face on Chaiki's knees with a pitiful _harrumph_.

"Hey, you can sleep on our couch tonight and then in the morning I can give Peko my _infamous_ disappointed look over leaving you," Hajime grins. Chiaki smiles. "Also, has Watson been sleeping at Peko's with you?"

Chiaki grabs Watson's leash and they head toward the door. "Yes, she has. And Peko has been nothing but lovely about it. I was actually thinking of looking for a new apartment for us both this morning."

"Oh?"

Chiaki nods. "Yup. I don't want Peko to feel like she has to keep putting up with me."

"I don't think she feels that way," Hajime says as he grabs his coat and gloves. It's still snowing outside and he can already feel himself freezing. "Peko's brilliant like that."

Chiaki sighs. "She is."

All three of them exit The Pie Hole and head home together. Unbeknownst to them, a dark figure in a black jacket watches them, feeling cold and miserable all at once.

/

author's note:ok...listen...watson has been in my story for two seconds but if anything happened to her i would kill everyone who has read this story and then myself.

also reviews keep me inspired to write and if i don't get them then i might not be able to continue the story because of other things going on in my life. thank you to everyone who has written one so far!

my tumblr is bravemccalll if you wanna talk to me

anyway, hope you enjoy the rest of the story! - nic


	7. Chapter 7

chapter seven – love like a bullet

The week in which someone dies, they meet Tsumiki's killer, and Hajime realises that he's in love with two people at once, is also the week in which Kazuichi tries to sell The Pie Hole's customers his new product.

"For limited time only! A cologne for men that is guaranteed to get you a woman! Perfect for a Christmas gift."

"Is that just the cologne that you tried to sell last year in a different bottle?" Fuyuhiko asks.

"No comment," Kazuichi says.

"That means it is," Nagito says to Fuyuhiko in a stage whisper. Fuyuhiko snorts. Hajime notes that the bags under his eyes are deeper.

"Come on, guys!" Kazuichi whines, walking over to slump in a stool next to Fuyuhiko. "It's Christmas on Friday. It's _Tuesday_. You can't have possibly bought all your presents by now."

"Kazuichi, just because you're a mess doesn't mean we all are," Peko says as she exits the kitchen. She comes behind the counter to stand next to Hajime and faces Fuyuhiko. "I managed to get us tickets to that museum you wanted to go to."

Fuyuhiko grins wryly at her. "Are you trying to butter me up or somethin'?"

She shrugs. "Maybe. Or maybe I just want to spoil you. Is that so bad?"

Fuyuhiko opens his mouth to reply but Kazuichi leans over and interrupts him. "You know what would go well with a museum date? Cologne."

Nagito laughs. Fuyuhiko doesn't. "Try to sell me that thing one more time and I'll crack you over the head with it."

"He says that in a very loving and friendly way," Hajime interjects.

"No, I don't," Fuyuhiko deadpans before Peko drags him through the kitchen to her office.

There is a beat of silence.

"So, do you think they're making out or what?" Kazuichi says.

Hajime throws a dirty rag at him while Nagito laughs.

/

Here's the thing: Peko is a lot of things and mysterious may be one of them, but to Hajime she is one of the most straight-forward people he has ever met.

Her story is a simple one and was told to him in a brief few sentences, minutes before their first shift at The Pie Hole.

Her family was a foreign one, and a very rich one.

They were involved in some deep politics and had intended to marry her off to a Duke as soon as they could.

The night they met was after she had run away because they had told her their plan. She had returned but when she saw him again all those years later, she wanted something more for herself. She wanted to build something that would actually mean something to her.

(Hajime had only nodded and a few months later told her about his powers. A few days after that she had hugged him as tight as she could and thanked him with her voice raw and open in a way that had made his eyes water.

They had burned her red dress on the first anniversary of The Pie Hole's opening. They had made smores.)

/

On the Wednesday, Sonia and Gundham come into The Pie Hole and Hajime asks them if anything was strange about their apartment.

"Well," Sonia says, her pointer finger coming up to tap on her chin. "Our door doesn't actually lock."

"What?" Fuyuhiko asks. "How can you live in an apartment that doesn't lock?"

"We use the door chain to lock the door at night but you cannot lock the door with a key at all," Sonia explains.

"There is an angry aura surrounding the place," Gundham says. "There is a crack right next to the door and some scratches on the floor."

"Sounds like there was a struggle there," Fuyuhiko muses. Chiaki hums in agreement.

Watson huffs and presses her face against Gundham's thigh. "Hello," he coos, reaching down to pat her and pulling out dog treats to feed her. Watson barks happily.

"He just carries them around with him?" Hajime asks.

Sonia looks away from Watson and Gundham who she had been watching with a fond grin. "Yes. Gundham is a dog trainer!" Gundham puffs out his chest proudly.

"You're joking," Fuyuhiko says, his expression incredulous. Sonia turns to him with a confused look. "Wow, you're not joking."

"Anyway," Hajime interjects before someone's feelings get hurt. "Thank you, a lot, guys."

"It was no problem," Sonia says and smiles brilliantly.

"Do you need someone to train…" Gundham starts.

"Watson," Chiaki supplies. "And if you want to then sure!"

Gundham gives Chiaki a rare smile and the two of them start discussing the training course for Watson.

"Well, I'm gonna go tell Kyouko what we found out. Tell Peko that I'll be back soon." With a final glance around, Fuyuhiko disappears out the front door.

Hajime thinks that he seems more jumpy than usual but he doesn't know what to make of it.

/

Here's the thing: Gundham and Sonia are very strange but Hajime thinks that he likes them.

Once, when Hajime had asked Sonia why she was dating Gundham, out of pure curiosity. She had replied, "Because he is the most magnificent person I have ever had the pleasure of meeting."

(It was almost sweet if Hajime hadn't also asked Gundham the same question and he had replied, "Because she is the Queen of the Underworld."

Well, Hajime can bring back the dead so he doesn't think he has the right to judge too much.)

/

Hajime is wiping down counters on the day before Christmas, just after closing time when someone waltzes into The Pie Hole.

"We're closed," Fuyuhiko says without looking up from his paper. Hajime almost tells him that he doesn't actually work here but when he looks at the person that is standing in front of the door, his mouth goes dry.

"I'm not here for pie," the person says.

Fuyuhiko freezes.

Hajime knows that this man is Fuyuhiko's father the way that he knows when his pies are done, the way he knows when Kazuichi is lying to him, the way he knows when Peko's mind isn't on what's happening in front of her.

"Get the fuck out," Fuyuhiko growls before Hajime can process what to do. It's only them in The Pie Hole; Nagito and Chiaki had gone home already and Peko had retired early because of a headache that she had tried to hide from them.

"It's rude to ignore my letters, Fuyuhiko," his father says, ignoring what his son had said in favour of taking a seat next to him. Fuyuhiko hops up as though he had been burned.

"Are you fuckin' kidding me? After years of ignoring all of mine, you think that you have the moral high ground here?!"

"Maybe you should go," Hajime says, trying to diffuse the situation.

"No. Someone killed one of my men and I want to know who," Fuyuhiko's father says.

"Oh, I see," Fuyuhiko says. "I am dead to you until you need me to do something for you. Oh, yeah, _Dad_ , let me just hop on that and then you can go back to never thinking about me ever again."

"I have thought about you every single day," his father snaps.

"Oh, big fucking whoop. Never made you ever actually _talk_ me," Fuyuhiko snaps back.

"I couldn't – "

"Oh, I know. The clan is more important. Fuckin' spare me." Fuyuhiko turns around and disappears into the kitchen. Hajime can hear his pots smash into the ground.

"Look," Fuyuhiko's father says and he looks as tired as Hajime does. "I'll tell you whatever you need to know."

"I don't think I should – " Hajime starts.

"Do you know Junko Enoshima?" his father asks. Hajime stares for a moment before he nods. "She owed me some money. I doubt you knew about it, she was good at hiding it. _We_ didn't even know that she was pitching above her weight before my accountant found out. I demanded that she pay us back but she refused. I sent one of my men to rough up her sister and I haven't seen him since."

Hajime's mind swarms with questions and his skin crawls at having to deal with this man. "Has she paid you back now?" He nods. "What does your…man look like?"

"Tall guy. Kind of has a mohawk. He was a biker before I took him on board. His name is Mondo Oowada."

Hajime just nods. "Right. You should um – You should go."

Fuyuhiko's father looks at Hajime pleadingly. "Can you tell Fuyuhiko that I do love him. I do."

Hajime says he will.

(He doesn't.)

/

Here's the thing: The Yakuza have a code. And that is that family always comes first, above all else. And breaking that code means being disowned and ostracised.

Fuyuhiko had broken the code when he had phoned the police on his uncle for beating his mother when he was seventeen.

Fuyuhiko had been unrecognisable to his own family and left out in the cold. He had run away but his mother had stayed, claiming that Fuyuhiko was a foolish child and that she at least knew her place.

(It had all been a waste anyway. His uncle had gotten out of jail after a couple of years and the first thing he had done was put a bullet in Fuyuhiko's mother.

Fuyuhiko didn't find out until a year later when he had tried to send a letter to her. He had received a post-it note from his father, telling him what had happened.

He keeps her locket in the drawer next to his bed.)

/

"Would you bring anyone else back?" Chiaki asks him while curled up on his sofa. Ever since Peko forgot to bring her home, Chiaki has started leaving some of her clothes at Hajime and Nagito's apartment and started staying the night more and more.

"Like who?" Hajime asks from the kitchen. He's trying to work on a new recipe for The Pie Hole but his mind is too preoccupied with what happened on the day before, with Fuyuhiko and his father. Hajime had to chase after Fuyuhiko once his father had left and caught him in a back alleyway. Fuyuhiko had kicked over a bin and punched a wall before Hajime managed to subdue him.

("I have a little sister, you know?" Fuyuhiko had said, looking beaten down by the world. His knuckles are bleeding. "I've never met her."

"Oh, Fuyuhiko," Hajime had said. He had wrapped his arms around Fuyuhiko but it hadn't felt like enough.)

"Hajime?" Hajime jumps and turns to see Chiaki frowning at him with concern. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, sorry what were you saying?"

She stares at him for another moment but turns back to Watson who is idly chewing on a bone. "I was just asking if you would bring back any one else back. Like Nagito and all that."

Hajime hums in thought. "I've talked to them about it a few times. Peko doesn't want to trade someone else's life for her's so she's against it. Fuyuhiko feels the same. Nagito wants to be brought back as long as I touch him again just before _I_ die so we can go together. Kazuichi just wants brought back full stop."

Chiaki nods as though she thought so. "I don't know why I want to know, I just…I have this bad feeling, you know? I don't know why." Watson whines and abandons her bone in favour of pressing her face into Chiaki's stomach. Chiaki buries her face into her fur. "I feel like I'm going to lose someone that I have come to care about and I don't want that to happen but I don't know how to stop it."

Hajime stands helplessly in his kitchen, wanting to comfort her but being unable to. "I'm sure we'll all be alright," he says. She looks up at him with watery eyes. "We've endured a lot. Whatever is coming, we'll endure as well."

She smiles at him and turns to Watson to play with her. Hajime bites down on his lip harshly. The bad feeling is also in his stomach and he doesn't know what to do about it either.

/

Here's the thing: Christmas has always been a holiday that has marked the years of Hajime's life.

When he was younger, he had adored it. He remembers one particular Christmas in which he had gone sledding with Kazuichi.

In the years after his parents had died, the holiday had only been a reminded of how alone he was and how cold the world could become.

In the most recent years, they had been happy again. Surrounded by his new family that he had found all on his own, Hajime felt more at home than he had since the car crash.

(This Christmas was going to be one that they will all remember forever.)

/

author's note: i can only apologise for the death that i am about to spring on you guys lmao.

but also thank you so much to everyone who has commented so far! I love you all so much.  
but yes i think only one more chapter after this. i might work on a sequel to this work but i will have to think about it lmao.  
well my tumblr is bravemccalll if u want to yell at me.  
until next time! - nic


	8. Chapter 8

chapter eight – quiet my love, for we have long to go

"Do you remember that time you threw a chair at a fire alarm to stop some bullies picking on Kazuichi?" Chiaki asked Hajime once when they're both meant to be sleeping but decided to stay up watching re-runs of some sit-com.

"Of course," he'd replied, eyes trained on how she'd fiddled with the sleeves of her jumper.

"You asked me not to tell anyone." She stopped fiddling and stares at him, eyes bright with the glow of the moon through the window. "And I didn't."

Hajime's heart had sat in his throat. He couldn't think of anything to say.

(Looking back, he wishes he had said something. _Thank you_ , perhaps. _I think I might be in love with you and my boyfriend at once_ , maybe.

With a gun trained right between his eyes, he really wishes he had said something. Anything.

Now he's afraid he won't have the chance.)

/

Let's back up a few hours. At three in the morning on Christmas morning, someone knocks on Hajime's door. Hajime wakes up but Nagito doesn't. When he creeps up and out of his bedroom, he sees Chiaki still dozing on the sofa with Watson resting her head on her knees. Watson stares at Hajime as he goes to answer the door. She only growls softly but otherwise is silent.

Hajime opens the door and sees Fuyuhiko. Hajime sighs.

"Dude, what –"

"I think we should go check out the sewers," Fuyuhiko interrupts. "It's the only way the killer could have left the park so there might be clues."

Hajime blinks at him. "It's Christmas."

"We'll only be a few hours and then we'll be back. No one will even know we were gone," says Fuyuhiko.

"You mean Peko won't know that you've gone," Hajime interprets. Fuyuhiko stays silent, his hands shoved into the pockets of his dark coat. "Look, I get that you're on edge because of your dad and –"

"Don't," Fuyuhiko snaps. "Just – don't. Look, I'm going even if you aren't. I just thought that if we found anything down there then you would be useful. But stay, I really don't care." Fuyuhiko steps out of the doorway and turns as though to head down the stairwell on his right.

"Wait," Hajime says. Fuyuhiko looks at him over his shoulder. "I'll go get dressed."

Fuyuhiko smiles briefly but hides it quickly with a look of indifference. "I'll wait outside."

/

The sewers are gross. Hajime shines his flashlight along the walls and forces himself not to gag. He doesn't know what's worse: breathing through his mouth or his nose. He settles on his mouth but the thought of all that grime settling in his throat causes him to switch back to his nose.

"This way to the park," Fuyuhiko says as he points to a turn on his left before he walks along the narrow path at the side of the brown coloured water that stirs every so often.

Hajime follows him quietly.

"Do you want to talk about it," Hajime asks him after a second of silence.

"Nope," Fuyuhiko replies without looking up from the map in his hands.

"Are you going to talk about it with Peko?"

"Already have," says Fuyuhiko.

"Good," says Hajime. "That's good. Communication is important. Vital, one would say. Talking to the people you care about."

Fuyuhiko hums distantly.

"Conversing with other people on subjects that need to be addressed. Yes, very good and – I think I'm in love with Chiaki."

Fuyuhiko snorts. "Saw that one coming from a mile away."

"What? How?" Hajime splutters.

"You were always staring at her with big doe-y eyes. I'm just surprised you didn't have your 'Oh no, feelings are happening' panic _way_ sooner," says Fuyuhiko.

"I don't have emotional induced panics," Hajime scoffs.

"Peko told me about how you lay face down on the ground for an hour a few weeks after you met Nagito."

"Damnit Peko," Hajime mutters.

Fuyuhiko snorts again. "Yeah, well, we tell each other everything so - Holy fuck," he shouts, suddenly.

"What?" Hajime asks before he looks over Fuyuhiko's shoulder and sees it. "Holy fuck," he echoes.

Lying slumped against the wall, is a dead body. With a mohawk that has wilted and now lays across the body's forehead, the dead figure has dark bruising around its necks and face with its shirt ripped and dried blood stuck to the concrete beneath it.

"That's the guy your dad was talking about," Hajime breathes.

"What?" Fuyuhiko asks, his shoulders tensing.

"After you left, your dad told me that Junko had owed him money but refused to pay it back so he sent this guy to rough her sister, Mukuro, up but he hadn't seen him since. Well, I'm guessing she killed him and here he is," Hajime explains.

"Junko owed the clan money?" Fuyuhiko says. "Well, she must've payed it back after this all happened because otherwise she would be dead by now. That's odd though. I didn't know that she gambled, especially at the kind of dens the clan owns." Fuyuhiko frowns down at his shoes, deep in thought.

"…I'm going to wake him up," Hajime says. Fuyuhiko nods and Hajime stretches his hand out and taps the body on the forehead.

Mondo surges up and Hajime notices something he didn't before. Mondo's head was at an odd angle, tilted permanently to the right. His neck had been broken. Hajime winces before he can stop himself.

Mondo turns his body to stare up at Hajime and Fuyuhiko. "Who the fuck are you guys? Where is that crazy bitch?"

"Who?" Fuyuhiko asks.

"Mukuro Ikusaba," Mondo says, as though that were obvious. "I was sent to rough her up but when I got to her apartment, she freaked out. I tried to grab her and hit her, I mean she was like, a foot shorter than me, but she was fucking strong. Kicked me in the nuts and jumped on my back and tried to fuckin' strangle me." At this, he reached a hand up and touched his neck gingerly. "Fuckin' psycho, man."

"She was in the army," Hajime points out. "Didn't you know that?"

Mondo scoffs. "I don't do fuckin' research, man. I get told who to fuck up and then I do it."

"A very honourable career," Fuyuhiko drawls. Hajime elbows him in the ribs, sharply.

"Fuck off, dick. You're not fucking better than me. Who the fuck are you anyway?" Mondo stops, realisation dawning on him. "Holy fuck, you're Fuyuhik –"

Hajime reaches out and slaps a hand on Mondo's face again and he goes limp. Fuyuhiko looks at him, his face flushed with the beginnings of anger. "It was a minute," Hajime says, weakly.

"Who the hell are you?" a voice says from behind them.

They both turn around and see Mukuro Ikusaba staring at them with a gun clasped in her hand, pointed right at them.

"I'm Hajime," he says after a moment. "I bake pies." She just stares at him. "How are you?"

"Shut up," Fuyuhiko says.

"Copy that," Hajime replies.

Mukuro stares between them. "What are you doing down here?"

"We're looking for you," Fuyuhiko says, shoving his hands into his pockets. He looks too relaxed considering that there's a gun that could kill him being pointed right at him, but Hajime thinks that some people react to stressful situations differently from others. "We think that you killed Tsumiki Mikan. And we know that you definitely killed that guy there. I just want to know why."

"How do you know that I killed Tsumiki Mikan?" Mukuro asks. She has a very pale face and her hair is dark and dirty. Hajime wonders how long she has been staying down here. He almost feels sorry for her.

"Your sister told us to investigate you," says Fuyuhiko.

Her eye twitches. Hajime tells himself not to flinch. "She wouldn't do that," Mukuro replies, her voice as steady as it always has been but her hand that isn't holding the gun trembles at her side.

"Why?" Fuyuhiko asks.

"Because…" she pauses, frowning briefly. "I did it for her, why would she sell me out? No. No, she wouldn't do that." She points the gun higher so that it's now pointed at Hajime, right between his eyes. "You're lying."

Fuyuhiko steps forward, slowly and Mukuro changes the direction of her shot. "Why would you kill two people for her, Mukuro?" Fuyuhiko asks. Hajime feels a bead of sweat trickle down the back of his neck.

"She owed money. This mob boss wanted someone close to her hurt because she couldn't pay up. He decided on me, but I killed the man he sent. I dragged him down here and told Junko what had happened. She said that someone had to turn up hurt and she told me that Tsumiki would have to be it." Mukuro blinks rapidly and Hajime wonders if she's going to cry. A swell of sadness wells up in his chest for her. "I didn't mean to kill her. I just wanted to knock her out but then there was no pulse and I – I panicked." The gun shakes for a moment but when Fuyuhiko takes another step, it steadies, and she focuses her gaze on him. "Don't," she hisses, and Hajime feels a flicker of déjà vu. "Just – don't. I know I'm a terrible person and I deserve to be punished but Junko said it was ok. That I just needed to lay low for a while down here, until everything blew over. She wouldn't sell me out, she wouldn't!"

"But, she did," Fuyuhiko says and his voice is soothing and soft. "She told us to look for you especially. Said that you scared her, that she wouldn't be surprised if you did kill her girlfriend." Hajime wants to scream at him to shut up but Fuyuhiko takes another step forward. "But, it's going to be ok, yeah? We just need to get out of here, ok?"

Mukuro stares at him, her eyes bright and lonely.

Fuyuhiko takes another step and then the gun is resting against his chest, right at his heart. "You don't want to kill me, Mukuro. You're not a bad person, not really."

A tear escapes the corner of her eye and she sniffs. "I love her," she says. "I love her more than anything."

"I know," Fuyuhiko says and then there's two gunshots.

At first, Hajime thinks that Mukuro had pulled the trigger twice. But then Fuyuhiko is dropping, a bullet in his heart, and Mukuro is dropping with him, a bullet buried in her back.

Hajime looks up and sees Junko with her gun trained on him. "Oh, I'm sorry darling. But, surely you saw this coming, no?"

Hajime just stares at her. A flurry of thoughts scurry through his head so fast, he thinks he going to be sick. He never told Chiaki he loves her. He didn't tell Nagito he loves him enough. He didn't spend enough time with Kazuichi, catching up for the years they lost. He didn't hug Peko nearly enough. Fuyuhiko is dead. Fuyuhiko is dead. Fuyuhiko is dead.

He opens his mouth but all that comes out is a choked noise. His eyes fill with tears and he looks at Fuyuhiko, laid out in filthy sewer water. He deserves better, Hajime thinks, he deserves to live forever.

Junko laughs maliciously. "Don't cry, sweetie. You'll be with him soon."

And then she pulls the trigger.

/

Here's the thing: Hajime has to get everything explained to him afterwards.

Junko didn't shoot him. _Well,_ Kazuichi interjects, _she kinda did_. He has red smudges around his eyes and won't let Hajime's hand go for an hour, but no one mentions it.

But, Junko only shot him in the collarbone. She didn't kill him. Because Peko clubbed her over the head with a baseball bat just before she could.

 _You're a badass_ , Hajime says to her. She shrugs. Her face is covered in wet streaks from tears and Hajime drags her down for a hug that he only half regrets as it aggravates his wound.

Then Peko had dragged Hajime and Fuyuhiko to the nearest ladder out of the sewers and phoned an ambulance.

Fuyuhiko is lying in her apartment. Junko was in jail. Mukuro was still in the sewers.

Hajime lies in a hospital bed and waits impatiently until he is allowed to leave.

/

The first thing Fuyuhiko does after Hajime touches him is surge up and grab Peko and hold her like if he lets go then he'll crumble. She sobs into his neck and Hajime watches for a few moments before he gets up to leave.

"Hey, man," Fuyuhiko says, his arms still wrapped around Peko. "Thank you."

Hajime smiles. "You're welcome. I love you, man."

Fuyuhiko nods. He's terrible with his emotions so Hajime just smiles again and walks out the front door.

(Peko's racist neighbour dies in place of Fuyuhiko. Hajime chalks it up as karma and moves on.)

/

"I think you should bring Mukuro back," Chiaki says one day over breakfast.

Nagito pauses in biting his toast. "Just to be clear," he says around the toast. "You mean the woman who killed some biker, your best friend and Fuyuhiko."

"Well, the last one wasn't intentional but yes," Chiaki replies.

"Right. Just wanted to be clear." Nagito and Chiaki both turn to Hajime with expectant eyes.

"Why should I?" Hajime evades. Watson makes a huffing noise from under the table that makes clear that she knows exactly what he's up to.

"The way you described her actions in the sewers makes me think that she was just messed up. I think she wants to be better. Shouldn't we give her that chance?" Chiaki asks, gazing at Hajime almost pleadingly.

"I don't want to play god," Hajime says, frowning down at his eggs. Chiaki had made breakfast that morning and she had made a smiley face with the eggs and bacon. It's cute. He still hasn't told her he loves her.

"You won't be, you're just giving this woman another chance to be a better person." Chiaki stares at him and he thinks that she's being entirely earnest, that she really wants Mukuro to have a second chance at life. She really is that good and kind and lovely and -

"I'm in love with you," Hajime blurts out and wants to stab himself in the eye. He turns to Nagito who's dropped a fork. "I still love you, I just – love you both? I guess. I think I want to date you both if that's ok. If not, that's fine too, whatever you know, it's –"

Nagito grabs Hajime's chin and kisses him and Hajime feels himself relax. He pulls away and smiles at Hajime. "It's ok, babe. I don't mind if you want to date Chiaki as well."

They both turn to Chiaki who grins. Her smile lights up her face. "Of course, I love you, you moron." She grabs a roll of cling film and brandishes it wildly. "Why do you think I bought this? I wanted to kiss you, you idiot!"

Hajime feels his cheeks burn as Nagito laughs and laughs and laughs.

/

Here's the thing: Hajime does bring Mukuro back. But he has her apologise to everyone that she's hurt and then gets her a job both as a waitress in The Pie Hole and helping out Kazuichi in his garage.

Here's the thing: Hajime knows that he can't touch Fuyuhiko ever again but sometimes he dresses up in hazmat suits and gives him the biggest hugs he can while Fuyuhiko grumbles his objections and Peko laughs.

Here's the thing: Hajime is happy. Very happy.

/

author's note: oh dear lord this is long over due.

i want everyone to know that i am planning on a sequel from the point of view of fuyuhiko and peko but thats gonna be another few weeks probably.  
thank you so much to everyone who has commented and liked this story. i love u all u angels!  
my tumblr is bravemccalll if u wanna ask any questions about the sequel  
until next time! - nic


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